


On digging holes

by ImaginaryNumber



Category: Burn Notice, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-19 00:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1448302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaginaryNumber/pseuds/ImaginaryNumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fullerton is blackmailing Glenanne and Westen, and Glenanne asks the only associates she has that Fullerton cannot possibly know about for help. Finch and Reese do not have to be asked twice once they learn that Fullerton abducted Root. This is somewhat of a sequel to 'Snowstorm'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On digging holes

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Burn Notice S5 E17  
> Person Of Interest S3 E3  
> .  
> Note: This is somewhat of a sequel to my story 'Snowstorm', but it can stand alone as well. Here's a short summary in case you don't want to read that one: Someone from the Organization has a data disk that contains a firmware virus meant to sabotage the Machine. The Machine arranges for Michael to learn about that person. He arrests the person and finds the disk, and the Machine sees to it that he and Fiona take it to Reese and Finch - in the process they learn about the SIN's, but don't know about the Machine. The two teams reluctantly work together to get the people who want that disk back off Michale and Fi's back, and to save the programmer who is writing the virus delivery routine.  
> Note that this story does NOT return BN back to canon.  
> .  
> Setting: This is set late in BN S5. Anson Fullerton set Fiona up for the bombing of the British Consulate in Miami and is now blackmailing her and Westen. They try to outwit him, but he is always ready for them. Michael has clearance with the CIA again and used it to upload a computer virus to their network. Fullerton wants Michael to get some other agents burned.  
> It is POI early S3 - Shaw is kind of on the team, Root is in a mental hospital, the Machine has gone rogue.  
> .  
> Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, and am not making any money from this work.  
> .  
> Acknowledgements: I'd like to thank planet_bob, Fingerz and Anaxandridas for their input!

 

**Chapter 1**

 

 

ID: Anson Fullerton

Tracking …..

Facial recognition failure - image source data inconsistent.

Tracking …

Target acquired.

Updating probabilities …

Database code 5290 - access lost.

Accessing backup …

Backup not available.

Database consistency check - FAILED

Updating probabilities - INSUFFICIENT DATA.

.

.

"Doctor-patient confidentiality, not your thing is it?"

Root nonchalantly lounged in the chair opposite Dr. Carmichael's desk. The room was bright with morning sunlight, and they had been sitting in silence for several minutes, with the psychiatrist filling out paperwork; a transparent means of enticing her to speak. Her opening statement was just an observation, but the complete lack of accusatory undertones gave way to the flavour of an ill omen.

"Why do you say that?"

The psychiatrist looked up from the paperwork with only the slightest hint of alarm showing in his body language. He knew, of course, what she was talking about, but how could _she_ possibly know?

"This isn't how She wanted this to go. But it's just as well." There was a pause before she continued. "You don't understand, do you?"

"Maybe you can help me understand?" Dr. Carmichael said in a patient tone he hoped would conceal the urgency he felt.

"Hah, well, it's too late now."

So the Machine was opposed to her killing the psychiatrist. That didn't mean she could not put him on edge a bit. She had had her fun now though, and saw no point in further engaging with the sorry excuse for a human across the desk from her. She consequently let her eyes go dead and thus ended the supposed therapy session.

.

.

Despite it still being morning, and the end of autumn, the air was hot and humid in Westen's loft, even more so up on the mezzanine where he was picking through a pile of assorted passports.

"So this is it?" Glennane shouted up at him from beside the bed. She yanked his grey duffle bag from the floor and pushed it onto the sheets. "We'll just keep doing what that sicko Anson wants? His glorified attack dogs? Today we kidnap someone, tomorrow he'll have us killing people!"

"I won't let it come to that," Westen answered calmly, without taking his eyes off the passports. His mind was made up. They'd been over this the night before, and he had a mission to prepare for.

"No, _I_ won't let it come to that."

The added intensity in her voice made him finally look at her. She was still clutching the sides of his bag.

"Fiona. _Please_. We'll find a way out of this."

Glenanne gave the bag another shove then turned around and walked to the window to let her anger and frustration simmer down. When she heard the sound of Michael's steps descending from the mezzanine, she turned to face him again. He stopped in front of the bed and stashed two passports in separate pockets of the duffel bag.

"Maybe we should ask for help," she finally suggested in a calm and imploring voice that agitated Westen more than her anger had.

"Ask _who_?"

"You know whom I'm thinking of. We'll be in their backyard." It was an option. Not the worst one at that. She had thought about it before, but discarded the idea then. But she could not continue to let them be Fullerton's errand boy and girl. The outline of a plan was forming in her mind and it calmed her down.

"No."

She cocked her head and gave Westen a withering look.

" _No_." He insisted.

"Fine, have your way. Don't expect me to be a part of it."

"Fi, I'm doing this for you."

"No, no you are not doing this for me!"

The spectacular flaming anger in her voice had been blown out, but the calm, quiet coals that remained burned even hotter. He knew refusing her suggestion would bring out the heat again, but he could still make things right, his way. He wished she would just trust him on that. But before he could say anything else to convince her, she was gone and he was left staring at his wide open front door.

.

.

Shaw unclipped Bear's leash as they entered the main chamber of the library. The room was cool, despite the noon sun shining in through the windows. She lingered by the doorway and let her eyes wander, confirming what the locked gate had indicated: There was no one else here.

Bear, unimpressed by her idleness, insistently pushed his tennis ball against her right hand.

"Really?"

Bear looked at her with anticipation.

"Fine."

The ball flew across the chamber, bounced off the wall and was caught mid-air, then promptly returned to Shaw's hand. She threw it again, intrigued by the dog's simple happiness at chasing the little yellow ball. On Bear's fourth return, he dropped the ball prematurely, his interest suddenly taken by the sound of the gate opening. He trotted toward the staircase.

Shaw set her face to neutral, adjusted her black denim blazer, and prepared to exchange no more than a few words with Finch. She halted as the sound of the footsteps coming up the stairs was not Finch's uneven limp, but rather a steady, light, slow tapping.

Shaw pulled her weapon and concealed her body behind the door frame, even as Bear stood wagging his tail at the top of the stairs. A hand and a woman's dark-blond hair came into view.

"Hi there. Are your owners home, hmmm?"

Glenanne looked up and spotted the gun pointing in her direction from the end of the hallway.

"Hello." She said tentatively, regretting that she had not used more caution.

"Who are you?" A detached female voice asked, or rather: demanded, from the main chamber.

"I'm a ... an acquaintance of Mr. Finch's."

"Take your weapon out slowly and drop it to the floor."

Glenanne hesitated briefly, but the fatalistic mood she was in made going along easy enough. She set her favourite firearm on the floor and gave it a light kick, under Bear's watchful and confused eyes.

"Come in."

Glenanne walked down the hallway toward the disembodied voice, Bear following along. Heeding a nod from Shaw in that direction, Glenanne sat in the chair Reese usually occupied. Shaw rubbed the dog's ears, without taking her eyes or her weapon off the other woman.

"So, who are _you_?"

"None of your concern."

"Reese finally convinced Mr. Finch to get a bodyguard?"

"Do I look like a bodyguard to you?" Shaw's voice was empty, the quizzical nature of the sentence betrayed only by its grammatical construction.

"I guess not."

Under different circumstances, Glenanne may have relished figuring this person out. Maybe would have looked forward to teasing some sign of emotion out of her steady face. But this was not the time for playing games. It also was not how she had expected her appearance at the Library to go, and for as much as she normally thrived on disruption, she was not in the mood for unexpected situations. Before this encounter could play out, though, the gate rumbled again, and shortly thereafter Finch appeared in the hallway. He was temporarily taken back by the firearm on the floor, but then he saw the two women.

"Ms. Glenanne!" he exclaimed and quickly shuffled into the chamber.

"What an unexpected visit. I see you've met Ms. Shaw."

Shaw studied Finch's face and posture in an effort to determine the kind of relationship between him and the well-dressed woman. Finch noticed her scrutiny and felt cautiously proud. Shaw was coming around, starting to care about more than the dog.

"It's quite alright Ms. Shaw. Ms Glenanne is a friend," he reassured her.

Happy enough with this explanation, Shaw shrugged and unceremoniously tucked her weapon away, then pushed the dog leash, which she was still holding, into Finch's hand.

"He ate, he pooped." she informed him before disappearing into the hallway and down the stairs, where she passed Reese. She gave him a somewhat surprised look before deciding she really did not care why he was back at the library.

"Train station here today," she commented in passing.

"What does that mean?"

She had already disappeared into the shadows leading up to the exit.

Reese jogged up the stairs then slowed down at the top, looking around the corner wearily before proceeding into the hallway. He picked up Glenanne's firearm from the floor and slunk through the corridor toward the main chamber, where he found the firearm's owner looking somewhat uncomfortable in his chair. She had not noticed him yet.

"Hello." His gun was held at an angle toward the floor and he continued to survey the room. "Where's Finch?"

"Gee, everyone's so friendly here today." She turned around to look at him. "Nice to see you again, too."

Finch appeared at the doorway into the alcove.

"Ah, Mr. Reese. Impeccable timing."

He looked at Reese's firearm just long enough for the other man to notice and ignore the stare. The stare turned into a frown as Reese began checking the corridor and alcoves, gun barrel first, but, since Finch was unable to discourage his operative, he opted to instead fetch the tea from the alcove..

"So, Ms. Glenanne, what brings you back here to New York?" Finch handed Glenanne a cup then sat down at his desk. Reese walked back into the chamber and, prompted by another of Finch's stares, tucked the firearm into his belt and retreated to perch near the windowsill.

"I, ehm, I could use your help."

Glenanne struggled to keep eye contact with Finch, but she had to assess how her statement was being received. She briefly turned to glance at Reese as well, but his face was blank as usual.

Reese noticed the reluctance in her voice, the unease in her body language. The confidence she had emanated during their last encounter was still there, but it was shadowed by something dark looming over her. Even Finch picked up on it.

"We're all ears, Ms. Glenanne." The smile and gentle mannerism came easy to him.

"So, as you know, Michael has been working to dissemble the organization that had him burned. It seemed to be going okay, but he missed someone. The guy's name is Anson Fullerton, and he's one of the head honchos." She started tentatively, but picked up speed quickly. "He played us. Set us up, made it look like I'm responsible for the recent bombing of the British consulate in Miami. If we don't do what he wants, he'll hand the evidence over to the police."

She paused, and Finch finally asked:

"What is he having you do?"

"You know, the usual - steal things, kidnap people. In fact, this week we're up here to kidnap some woman from a psych hospital. God only knows what he wants with her, or what he's going to do to her."

Some of the anger she had stashed away shone through now. It alarmed Reese; he knew from bitter experience that angry and desperate people, especially dangerously skilled ones, were prone to leaving a smouldering trail of destruction along their paths.

"What do you want us to do?" he asked, carefully tinging his words with part concern and part caution.

"I'm not sure really, but you are the only variables that Anson cannot possibly have accounted for. He knows everything about Michael, about me, our friends, how we operate ... our pasts. He's always one step ahead of us. The only way to get ahead of _him_ is to surprise him, and, well, I was hoping you could be that surprise."

Her cards were on the table, and she felt more vulnerable than she was comfortable with, but she never doubted that coming here was the right thing to do. Separating from Westen to ask shadowy strangers for help maybe did not sound prudent, but what other option did she have?

"Westen doesn't know you're here, does he?" Reese guessed.

"No." She turned to look at Reese. "You can probably imagine how he feels about you two."

"What is he doing about your situation?"

"Right this moment, he's kidnaping that psych ward inmate."

.

.

Ms. Dostenski had just settled in for a quiet afternoon shift when she saw a van from a hospital she had never heard of before pull into the nearly empty parking lot. Two orderlies in white scrubs exited the vehicle and were soon standing at her desk, with a request for a patient transfer.

"It's really unusual for patients to be picked up this late in the afternoon. The doctor's out already," she informed them.

"Oh we know, but you see we were having trouble with the van .."

".. cooling fluid leak .." The other one chimed in.

"... so we had to stop and have it fixed. We were really supposed to have her back already and we don't want to make the trip again. Can't you make an exception?"

"Please, if we don't have her at Greenview by tonight we'll be in deep with Dr. Finley."

"Well I don't know. Are you sure Mr. Swift is alright with having her moved?"

"Ma'am, we're just the orderlies. You're welcome to call Dr. Finley and talk to him yourself."

Westen pointed at the number in the letterhead of the fake paperwork they had handed the attendant moments before.

Ms. Dostenski reluctantly dialled the phone.

"Greenview therapy center, Dr. Finley speaking."

"Yes this is Ms. Dostenski from Stoneridge Hospital. I'm calling in regards to a patient of ours, Ms. Farrow."

"Ah yes, Ms. Farrow, I trust she is safely on her way here?"

"No, I mean not yet, I'm just calling to confirm the transfer."

"Oh, well, if you could have her ready quickly, she's been accepted last minute into a new treatment program which starts tomorrow morning. I'm afraid if she's not here then, she'll lose her spot."

"I see, well, sorry to disturb you Doctor, we'll get her ready right away then."

"Very good."

Ms. Dostenski gave Westen and Porter another scrutinizing look, then turned to an orderly and instructed him to prepare Ms. Farrow for transfer. Fifteen minutes later, Root was in the van with Sam, Jesse and Michael.

.

.

Finch froze when he realized whom Westen and friends were breaking out of the psych ward. He looked from Glenanne over to Reese, who, having come to the same realization, pushed himself off the windowsill and approached the desk in silent alarm. The search for Anson Fullerton was already running in the background on one of Finch's machines when he reached the desk, and Finch's fingers were flying over the keyboard as he circumvented Stoneridge Hospital's security and accessed their surveillance feed. Both him and Glenanne were momentarily mesmerized by the display of efficiency and concentration in front of them.

"What?" Glenanne finally asked.

"Finch?"

Glenanne looked up at Reese and back at Finch. "Will someone tell me what is going on?"

"I need you to tell me everything you know about this Mr. Fullerton." Finch's voice was urgent. She recognized the leverage this held.

"Not until you tell me what is going on."

Finch looked at Reese for support. He was too preoccupied with the searches on his computer to also deal with the people in front of him.

"The woman Westen is kidnapping is a very dangerous, very intelligent, and seriously deranged assassin and computer hacker. She likes to go by the name of Root," Reese said.

"Oh that's bad. I don't even want to imagine what someone like Anson and someone like her could do together!"

"Kidnapp _ed_."

"Finch?"

"Past tense. As in: it already happened."

"I have to call Michael."

Glenanne rushed out of her chair to make the call in the other room.

"I guess the question of whether or not we'll help Ms. Glenanne just answered itself," Reese said once Glenanne was out of earshot.

"Hmm," was all he could get out of Finch.

Reese put his right hand hand on the ledge of the leftmost computer screen, and bent his body around the desk like a downhill skier avoiding a pole in slow motion, until he could see the front of the display - not that it made much of a difference.

"Finch, anything?"

Despite having his workspace encroached upon, Finch did not look up at him.

"Haste makes waste, Mr. Reese."

Reese let go of the screen and began pacing the room, and Bear, hoping this was a heeling exercise, eagerly trailed him. It was not long until Glenanne came back.

"They've already handed Ms. Farrow over to Anson. They don't know where Anson went with her. How is it you know this person, anyway?"

Finch stole a glance at Reese.

"The details are unimportant right now," he said before shifting his attention back to the screens.

"Of course they are, don't know why I bother to ask. Are you .. going to do anything?"

As if on cue, a printer rattled on the shelf behind Finch. He turned to retrieve a picture of Anson, with whatever was still available of his DIA personnel file. Finch handed it across the desk for both Reese and Glenanne to study.

"That's all I could find on him. It looks like he's been systematically wiping out all his digital footprints."

"It's more than we were ever able to get," Glenanne admitted. Finch of course wasn't surprised by that. Reese could tell now that something had Finch worried. Something other than Root being kidnapped by a rogue DIA psychiatrist.

"To answer your question, Ms. Glenanne, yes, we will do something. We will see what we can do about your problem with Mr. Fullerton, and I trust we can count on you to help us get Ms. Farrow back."

"I'd be happy to."

"What about Mr. Westen?"

"Let's just say he's not happy that I came to you for help. I'll go talk to him, and I'll be in touch ... thank you."

"Don't thank us _yet._ "

Reese retrieved Glenanne's firearm from his belt and held it out to her.

"You may need it." He had a glum, lopsided grin on his face.

Glenanne nodded, took her weapon and left. Reese was concerned as he watched her disappear down the hallway, but there was nothing he could do. He directed his worry to the man in front of him instead.

"Finch, what is it?"

"I can't quite put my finger on it. Some of the information I found on Mr. Fullerton seems corrupt. Not altogether unusual, but a paranoid individual might see tampering in the databases - the Machine uses those databases, too. It's almost as if he's trying to hide from the Machine."

"That would mean he knows about it."

"Maybe not the details. But I think he knows _something_. His organization _was_ , after all, involved in a previous sabotage attempt. It's not a far leap to think that the Machine had something to do with the situation that brought Ms. Glenanne back here."

"Well, lets find him then. Any leads yet?"

Finch checked his screens once more.

"No, nothing yet. I'll contact Shaw; I'm sure she'd be delighted to help us retrieve Ms. Groves."

Finch's cellphone rang and he raised an eyebrow as he answered it.

"We have a new number," he announced moments later.

"Now is not really a good time, Finch," Reese said, as if Finch could control the timing of new numbers.

"No, no it isn't." Still, Finch opened another console window and initiated a search on their new number.

.

.

Glenanne sat in her rental car at the back of a gas station, David Gray's 'Where do we draw the line' appropriately playing on the radio, when she saw Westen, Axe and Porter drive up. The three men were on their way to the airport. Axe and Porter had the good sense to stay in their car while Westen walked over to Glenanne's car.

"I told you I didn't want them involved," he said as soon as he was sitting in her passenger seat.

"Yeah, well, it's my life you're playing with, and I _wanted_ them involved."

"So you trust them more than me now?"

"This isn't _about_ trust, Michael. This is about taking down Fullerton without me going to jail."

"For all we know, they are working with Fullerton."

"What we- what _you_ were doing is clearly heading us down a road we don't want to be on. So I took an exit without knowing the street map. At least now we have a real chance."

"We had options before."

"And what options were those, huh? Name one occasion where Anson wasn't two steps ahead of us. Name one _person_ he hasn't sunk his claws in to get to you."

Westen rubbed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest.

"We worked well with them before. You feel jerked around by them, believe me, I get it. But you are no stranger to lying and withholding information, so get over yourself. They can help us."

He knew she was right. He just did not want to admit that he had gotten them into a hole too deep for him to get them out again. He was still clinging to the hope that an opportunity would present itself allowing him to cleanly fix the situation, even as Fullerton came up with surprise after surprise for them. Maybe it _was_ time they came up with a surprise of their own.

"Do they know what they are getting themselves into?"

"They have an idea."

"And they are willing to help?"

"For now, anyway. They are somehow involved with Ms. Farrow."

"Somehow involved?" Westen sat up straight and looked at her harshly.

"Yes, 'somehow involved'. I'm sure they'll share details if it becomes necessary. Isn't that what we would do?" Glennane answered in a 'taste your own medicine' tone.

They sat in silence for a minute. Westen stared out the windshield, pondering. Whether this would dig them in deeper or stir up that opportunity he'd been waiting for, he could not tell. He knew he would not be able to convince Glenanne to back out, and whatever way it would turn out, he owed it to her to be by her side.

"Let's go meet them."

Glenanne started the car.

 

 

**Chapter 2**

 

Reese looked up at the nondescript grey apartment building: the second place of residence listed for their newest number, according to Finch's computer. The front door was unlocked, so he entered the building and took a set of stairs, too brightly lit for his liking, down to the lower floor. At the end of the sickly-green hallway, he found the apartment number he was looking for. He approached slowly, looked around to confirm there were no witnesses, then picked the lock and flung the door open.

Inside the cave-like bachelor apartment, rock music was playing over tall speakers near the back wall. A couple of designer lamps struggled to illuminate the corners of the room. Since the windows were curtained with heavy material, the glow from several large computer screens on a desk near the middle of the room was the only other source of light, and it disappeared as soon as Reese stepped in the door. He flipped the switch for the overhead light, and saw two startled figures sitting at the desk which was cluttered with cables and assorted electronic equipment. Reese recognized the person closest to him - a skinny and tall man with ruffled blond hair - from the driver's licence picture Finch had dug up.

"Hey what the -"

"Haagen Eggebraten?" Reese demanded.

"Can you believe this guy, breaks in here and then butchers my name!" Haagen said to Leon.

Leon Tau came out from behind the desk.

"Oh no, am I in trouble again? Because I didn't do anything!" he rattled out.

Reese swung the door closed and two strides took him to the desk.

"Leon? What are you doing here?" His tone was that of scolding, not of surprise.

"You know this guy?" Haagen asked Leon, but Leon was focused on Reese.

"Doing here - wait, you're not here for me?" Relief entered Leon's demeanour.

"No, I'm here for _him_." Reese pointed at Haagen.

Leon turned to Haagen. "Oh man, what did you do? I bet it's that guy you're working for, I told you it didn't seem safe. But don't worry, John here is gonna protect you, isn't that right John?"

"Tell me about the guy you're working for, Haagen," John demanded. His tone of voice didn't sit well with the younger man.

"I don't know who you think you are man, but you're trespassing and if you don't leave right now I'm going to call the p-"

Reese grabbed Haagen's arm and bent it painfully behind his back. Leon, skittish as he was, jumped back a couple of feet.

"Listen, I don't have time for this. Tell me about the guy you're working for."

"Settle down, here." With Reese focused on Haagen, Leon found a bit of courage and came closer again to turn on the dark screen in front of them. The three were presented with the paused video from one of the surveillance cameras at the airport, dated the day before. Reese dropped Haagen's arm and stared at the screen.

"Fullerton. Is this who you're working for?"

"You know the guy?" Leon asked.

"Answer my question." Reese demanded of Haagen.

"I don't know!"

Reese went to reach for his arm again.

"It's the truth! Someone contacted me online, they are paying me to alter camera footage of that guy, I don't know who he is or if he's the one who hired me. All I know is I get a place and a date and they pay me to be ready to tamper with the footage as soon as it is taken."

"This image is from yesterday."

"Yeah well ... I was a bit .. eh .. busy yesterday, didn't get around to it."

Reese turned away from the screen and the new number and tapped his ear.

"You get all this, Finch?"

"I did. You're sure the video footage is of Fullerton?"

"Positive."

"It kind of makes sense, if he's trying to hide from the machine ... . You realize what this means! All we have to do is wait for him to contact Mr. Eggebraten and we'll know where he'll be."

"Yes, if Mr. Eggebraten doesn't get himself killed first."

"That is NOT how you pronounce- wait, get killed?"

Reese turned back to the computer and, under protest from its owner, pushed a flash-drive into the USB port.

"You ever consider that the people who have you deleting surveillance camera footage may not want to have any witnesses around, for the long term?"

"I'm not deleting it I'm running a modifi-"

Reese's stare conveyed a bucket-load of irate impatience.

"Well, maybe, but the pay was really good ..."

"Hey no worries man, John has it under control, right John?"

Annoyed by Leon's forced enthusiasm, Reese let some of that stare spill over onto him before assuming a more harmless demeanour for the purpose of eliciting cooperation.

"When do you expect another .. assignment?"

"You mean after the one I got today?"

Reese perked up.

"Where?" he demanded.

"Where what?"

"Where are you supposed to tamper with the surveillance footage today?" Reese said in a slow staccato.

"Nevin's street subway station, 6:20pm."

Reese checked his watch. "That was 5 minutes ago."

"I'm sending Shaw," Finch informed Reese through the earwig.

Reese addressed Haagen, "alright, pack up everything you need. I'm taking you to a safe house."

"Okay, uh, and who are you again? Police?"

"It's cool Haagen, do what he says, Dude."

"Oh yeah, I don't know, looks to me like if anyone's gonna kill me today, it's your friend here."

"He's right man, you know," Leon said to Reese, "you may want to check those vibes you give off, it's disconcerting."

"I won't kill you," Reese's voice was like the hum of an approaching missile, "but torture is not out of the question."

Haagen shoved a laptop and some accessories into a neon green messenger bag pulled out from under the desk, never taking his eyes off Reese for more than a few seconds, grabbed a sweater from a chair and was ready to go. _'Scare them straight, works every time,'_ Reese mused and took a hold of Haagen's upper arm to pull him toward the door.

"What about me, man?"

"What about you, Leon?"

"Well ... should I come?"

" _No_ , ... you should leave. But stay out of trouble. I'm too busy to pull you out of one of your messes right now."

Reese pulled Haagen out the door after him.

"Are you sure? I mean, I may be kind of a little bit involved with that Fullerton guy as well."

"Kind of a little bit involved?" Reese turned around again and fixed the smaller man with his stare.

Leon took a small step back. "I may have, you know, hid some money for him ..."

"Grab your stuff."

The trio left the apartment led by Reese. They were about to step out the front door when Reese stopped and motioned for them to stand against the wall, out of sight. He surveyed the street through the partially open door, then tapped his ear.

"Finch, I think this place is under surveillance, can you give me alternative exit options?"

"Surveillance?" Haagen went to walk toward the door to see for himself. "You're nut-"

Reese pushed him hard against the doorframe and pointed towards a grey Toyota.

"Oh, that guy's been sitting in that car somewhere around here nearly every day for over a- holy shit."

"I'll send Officer Carter to check it out. In the meantime, I found an alternative exit through the basement."

With instructions from Finch, the three men left the building undetected and proceeded to the house where Finch had first met Glenanne and Westen.

Finch and Westen's crew in the meantime were on their way there as well.

.

.

"Ms. Farrow. Or should I call you Ms. May?"

"You can call me Root," she sing-sang, never taking her eyes off the man sitting across from her on the only other chair. She looked harmless enough, but she knew how to inject her voice with just the right amount of edge to make the dissonance between her words and her looks grate on the nerves of anyone paying attention.

She sat leisurely, as she had in Dr. Carmichael's office, though she was cuffed to a chair which in turn was bolted to what was once a tiled floor, but now consisted of a patchwork of mostly broken tiles with large patches of bare cement showing through. They were in a long tunnel-like hall with a low vaulted ceiling that showed vestiges of painted-on artwork and stucco. There were no windows. The air was cold and humid and smelled stale, with a hint of mold and refuse. Her gaze followed the power cord of the single floodlight that provided light; it trailed the wall and disappeared up a wide staircase.

"Root. You may call me Anson." He leafed through a stack of papers in a beige folder. "I had a very interesting conversation about you with Dr. Carmichael. I have his files right here, too. Interesting, like I said, but I disagree with his diagnosis and with his treatment plan. Let me, if I may, provide a second opinion."

Root cocked her head and smiled. "As you wish, Anson."

He took a moment to look at her, the way a man may regard a strange dog facing him in an alley.

"To begin with, I don't think you're delusional. I think you do in fact have access to an extensive computer surveillance system and that you should stay in contact with ... Her. I can make that happen. Any issues you had relating to your breakdown - we can work out. The violent tendencies won't be an issue. I think I can help you. We can help each other."

Root suppressed a chuckle. "I don't need your help."

"I can protect you from the people who created the identity of Ms. Farrow and committed you to the Stoneridge facility."

"I don't need your help, or your protection."

"I broke you out of the mental institution."

"To handcuff me to a chair in a place that is, frankly, at lot less pleasant."

"Your accommodations here are temporary. Pending the outcome of our conversation."

"We'll see. Either way, I didn't need breaking out."

"So you agreed to stay at the mental institution?"

"It was best for me, at the time, to be there."

"I disagree, and I don't think you really believe that, either."

Her smug voice turned pensive. "It doesn't matter what you think, or what I think."

"Whose opinion matters, then?"

It seemed, for a moment, like Root's mind had left the room to find something better to do, but then her eyes came to life again and she smiled.

"Hers," she said in the self-satisfied manner of a schoolyard tease, "and she doesn't like you."

"Why doesn't she like me?"

"You're trying to sabotage her. She won't let you."

"Maybe we can change Her opinion of me. I'd like us all to work together. How can I talk to Her."

"She won't talk to you."

"Maybe you can talk to her on my behalf. How do you communicate?"

"I talk, She listens. She talks, I listen. It's fairly basic, really."

Fullerton sensed a dead end, so he changed direction.

"Did you ... build Her?"

"You have a lot of questions. I think I'm done answering them for today."

Another dead end, and yet another topic he would have to come back to.

"Why does She listen to you?"

"She's a better listener than you are."

Fullerton tried one last approach.

"I think She wanted us to meet. I mean, what were the chances of me running into my old buddy, and learning about you?"

"4.3%, give or take."

"Hmm. That makes me a pretty lucky guy."

"We'll see about that."

"Yes, yes I suppose we will."

.

.

Shaw bought herself a hotdog at a stand by the subway station entrance while scrutinizing the area. Coming up empty, she descended into the concrete rabbit hole that was the station entrance and merged effortlessly into the crowd of people there. A grumpy Fusco took the other entrance when he arrived a while later, and they trolled the station for any sign of psychopath or sociopath activity.

.

.

Reese and his two charges arrived last at Finch's safe-house. Reese dropped his coat on a chair in the entryway next to some others already there, and was greeted by a tail wagging Bear. He took a few steps, crossing the hallway, and reached the wide entrance into the living room, where Glenanne was again sitting on the black leather sofa. Finch sat across from her on the armchair, laptop on his knees. Sam Axe and Jesse Porter were sitting with their backs toward the room, focused on two computer screens on the desk by the wall, which showed the views of the surveillance cameras from Nevins Street subway station. Westen stood between the sofa and a large whiteboard, looking vaguely surly. Reese understood where the other man was coming from and nodded at him.

Finch looked uneasy in the soft cushions - although Reese suspected he was the only one picking up on it. Reese imagined that Finch would have preferred the company of complete strangers to these people with their badly-defined ties to him. Ties that could pull him into unpredictable circumstances. But such was his life now, a consequence of the choices he had made.

"Ah good, Mr. Reese, please join us. We have just started compiling a timeline of when and where Mr. Eggebraten altered surveillance camera footage." Finch nodded at the whiteboard that had a short list of dates and locations written on it. "Maybe Mr. Eggebraten would like to join the effort."

Reese gave Haagen a push in the direction of the whiteboard and took a few more steps toward the center of the room himself. Leon stuck close to Reese's side. Haagen's gaze dashed around the room, never making eye contact with anyone. He walked past the sofa, took a wide girth around Westen and picked up a dry erase marker from the bottom of the whiteboard.

"Sure, why not, that Fullerton guy's just gonna kill me if he finds out, kill all of us, probably."

"Oh don't fret it. He was going to kill you anyway," Glenanne said.

She seemed in better spirits. Now that Reese was aware of her precarious circumstances, he had to admire her tenaciousness. Working in the field often took all you had to give, and that's when you were not emotionally involved in the mission, and had a safety-net - even if it was full of holes - in the form of some organization backing you. Doing it with personal stakes so high, and without fall-back option, was a whole different kind of nerve-wracking.

.

"This isn't going to be big enough. Got a second whiteboard?"

Haagen had started scribbling dates and locations in tiny, near-illegible handwriting. Silent glances went from him to the whiteboard and back.

"What? I got a good memory." He resumed writing out the information.

"I'll see what can be done about the impending whiteboard shortage. Oh, by the way, this is Jesse Porter, another one of Mr. Westen's associates," Finch said to Reese.

Porter looked from one surly ex-op to the other, unsure for a moment, but then stood up and held out his hand.

"Hey, nice to meet you, have heard a lot about you."

"Porter." Reese nodded at him and out of a sense of obligation shook the hand offered.

"And who might this be?" Glenanne asked, looking at Leon.

"That's Leon -"

Leon partially raised his arm in an attempted greeting gesture while his gaze bounced around the room.

"- he may have a line on Mr. Fullerton's money."

Glenanne raised an eyebrow. "Okay then, if we're done with introductions, lets come up with a plan of action."

"I just finished downloading all the original footage, which Mr. Eggebraten helpfully saved on his hard drive. I'll transfer it to the computer on the desk, if you two want to see if anything stands out."

"It's what we live for." Axe said, slapping Porter on the shoulder.

There was a knock on the door, causing all the ex-ops to reach for their firearms, tucked into waistbands and purses. Finch set his laptop on the side table and struggled to his feet.

"Pizza," he announced and gave a stern look to the the gun-slingers until they hid their guns away. He then proceeded to the door and paid for a stack of six large pizzas. Porter and Axe simultaneously jumped to their feet and, walking past Reese and Leon, went to help Finch carry the boxes to the coffee table.

"Plates. In the kitchen, if you wouldn't mind," Finch said to Reese.

Glenanne caught on and moved the flower arrangement to the side-table to make space for the food. Westen pretended to be studying the whiteboard, and only turned to give Porter and Axe one of his own disapproving looks.

"What man, it's pizza." Porter responded while opening a box. "Or, something pizza-like, anyway. What is that?" he pointed at a pale-green leafy thing.

"That is a quartered artichoke heart. It's authentic Italian pizza."

Porter shrugged and pulled a flimsy slice onto his hand, which reminded Finch that they were still missing plates. He made his way to the kitchen, where Reese was lingering in front of a cupboard.

"Pizza, Finch?"

"I considered going for Chinese, but decided on pizza as the least objectionable option, considering I didn't have time to look into what dishes everyone preferred."

"Root is loose and probably teaming up with a psycho at least as dangerous as her, and you're worried about dinner?"

"Food brings people together, Mr. Reese, and we may as well eat while we wait for their trail to become hot."

"You still think we should all work as a team."

Finch wanted to say ' _the Machine thinks so_ ', but that would have made him sound like Root. So instead he went with, "you don't?"

Finch inviting everyone here, without consulting him first, didn't sit right with Reese. And on top of it all, the Machine, Finch's Machine, was playing games with them again. Entangling them with Westen's team. It clearly hadn't been designed that way, and Finch wasn't in control of it anymore, if he ever was. Finch, of course, seemed oblivious to Reese's concerns. They'd have to have a talk about this, at some point. Right now, though, they had a fire to put out.

"I think we should get Root back."

Finch nodded, then said, "after you".

Reese pulled the plates from the cupboard and carried them to the coffee table. Then he started studying the dates and places on the whiteboard. Finch was right behind him.

"Eat, everyone," Finch commanded. Everyone but Reese and Westen helped themselves to some pizza. Finch looked at Westen. "Even you have to _eat_."

Glenanne backed Finch up. "Michael. Sit."

With a sigh, Westen shed the mood he was in and joined them at the sofa table. Reese, too, relented and ate. The atmosphere didn't quite make dinner party level, but it was better than the glum tension that filled the air before. Team building, the Finch way.

.

"So, say we find Anson, what then?" Axe said after sitting back down at the desk chair with a slice of pizza in his hand.

"Yeah, I mean, we can't just grab him. Not as long as he has the incriminating evidence against Fiona," Porter said between bites.

"So we tail him, find out where he's hiding it, then move in. Shouldn't be that hard, now that we get live updates on where he is," Westen suggested, looking at Haagen.

"You mean _we_ tail him." Reese said.

Westen pressed his lips into a thin line.

"Yes, _you_ tail him. How many people have you got?" He looked from Reese to Finch.

"Two, maybe four, depending, to — Bear can't have- if you feed him that, it is your obligation to take him out later," Finch frowned at a shrugging Leon and turned back to Westen, "to tail Mr. Fullerton, should it come to that."

"What about your girl, Root?" Axe asked Finch.

"I expect we'll find her when we find Mr. Fullerton. We need to get her back as soon as possible; she's not ... stable."

Finch's cell phone rang.

"It's Ms. Shaw," he announced before answering.

"Ms. Shaw. I'm putting you on speaker with, well, _everyone_."

"Someone's guarding a side door on the west side of the station. Don't know where it goes. Don't think we've been made yet. If you've got the camera feed up, middle seat on the bench under the station sign, black tuque, dark grey trench-coat, concealing at least two firearms, pretending to read the newspaper. Been on the same page for the last 40 minutes. Amateur."

Finch was typing rapidly on his laptop during Shaw's report.

"There he is," Porter said, pointing at one of the camera feeds on the screen in front of him, "don't have an angle on the door."

Finch looked up from his laptop. "That door leads to an unused lower level of the station."

"Hmm. Sounds like something I should check out."

" _No_." Westen interjected. "We can't risk tipping him off. I say we wait him out."

"Finch?" Shaw asked.

"Confirmed, Ms. Shaw. Do not go looking for him."

"Fine. But if we hang out here much longer, we'll get made."

"Can you wait outside the station?"

"You gonna buy me a steak for this later?"

"Certainly, Ms. Shaw."

"Alright, Fusco and I will be street-level."

She disconnected the line.

"He comes out of that door, we'll be on him." Axe said, then looked back at his screen.

"That should be in about 5 minutes." Haagen held up his cell phone. "Just got a new assignment."

.

.

If there was one skill Fullerton excelled at, it was getting into people's heads. He liked doing it, too. Most people's motivations were easy to pin-point, and manipulating their actions was just as easy. Not Root. Her girlish exterior hid a hard to pin down, and even harder to break, core. Her intelligence made her elusive; and she wasn't just sitting there for his probing, either. Her intimidation tactics were good, they'd work on lesser men. It was clear to him that she drew her strength from the connection she had with that computer system. Taking this connection from her was the obvious way of breaking her, and Fullerton would have relished doing just that, if the details about said computer system were not precisely what he was after. He would have to find a way to appeal to her conceit, her need to be connected, maybe her desperation, to gain access to it.

Maybe spending a night cuffed to a chair by an abandoned subway track would tenderize her, leaving her more vulnerable to his tactics. But then, maybe not. In truth, it was he who needed to rest and re-charge. He had been gathering information on this computer surveillance system for a while, - ever since his Organization was hired to retrieve that computer disk, - and this was his lucky break. If he could actually gain control over the system, rather than just disable it …

His investment in the outcome made him vulnerable. He couldn't risk getting tired and inadvertently giving her a handle on his motivations.

Fullerton walked through the door to the active part of the station like it was his business to come out of there, barely acknowledged his operative at the bench, and took the No. 4 train north. Shaw just missed him by a few seconds.

She jogged back up to the street level and demanded the keys to Fusco's cruiser, seeing as her car was two blocks away. The cop was about to say 'no' but the look she gave him made him change his mind in a hurry. He just barely made it into the passenger seat of his own car before she drove off, roughly following the No. 4 subway line. She tapped her ear.

"Finch. Where am I going?"

"There is no way you can keep up with the subway, Ms. Shaw."

"Wanna try me, Finch?"

"He's going our way," Reese interrupted before grabbing his coat and heading out the door.

"Ms. Shaw, I think now may be a good time to explore the lower levels of the subway station. I'm sending you the blueprints. But remember: we don't want to tip Mr. Fullerton off."

Axe and Porter did not take their eyes off the screens, which cycled through the camera feeds of all the stations where the No. 4 train stopped. It took all the willpower Finch had to focus on hacking the transit system's servers with so many people around him.

"Haagen, any new asignments?" Westen asked.

Haagen held up his phone. "Nothing so far."

"Well, he has to get off _somewhere,_ " Glenanne said.

Finch looked up from his laptop. "There are two stations on that route that have no surveillance cameras - yet." He dialled Reese.

"Mr. Reese, he may be exiting the subway at 170th Street or at Fordham Road." Finch was looking at a map of the city. It also showed the locations of his assets. "Officer Carter is close to Fordham, I'll send her there."

"Got it, on my way to 170th."

Finch dialled Carter's cell next and sent her to the Fordham Road station with a picture of Fullerton.

.

.

Fusco and a uniformed officer approached Fullerton's operative on the subway station bench. Two more officers approached from the other side.

"Excuse me Mister; would you come with us please," the officer said.

"What for?"

"Sir, please stand up right now."

Fullerton's operative stood, looking around for an escape route - to a bystander, the action may have seemed to stem from confusion.

"Slowly open your coat."

"Excuse me?"

"Do it _now_."

The other two cops had come to a halt about 4 m behind the bench and were ready to draw their firearms. The operative, having no way out, relented and in opening his coat, revealed two handguns.

"You got permits for these?" Fusco asked.

The operative remained silent, so the cops arrested him and led him out of the station. Fusco made brief eye contact with Shaw when his group passed her on the way up the stairs.

Shaw went up and down the platform twice more to verify that no one else was watching the door. Then she skillfully picked the lock and entered the abandoned part of the station without anyone noticing. She stood and listened for a moment, waiting for any indication that someone had noticed her entrance, and giving her eyes time to adjust to the near-darkness. All she could hear was water dripping into a puddle somewhere, and the faint tapping of tiny feet on wet cement. Weapon drawn but forgoing a flashlight, she moved like a spectre through the abandoned structure. The air grew increasingly stale the further she went from the door. Instinct and some stray beams of light from the station above helped her navigate around black indistinct shapes that may have been construction materials or discarded station furniture.

The faintly illuminated opening to a wide staircase drew Shaw in. She slowly approached and followed the stairs down all the way, then carefully looked around the corner. About 15 m away from where she was standing, Root was looking bored, cuffed to one of two metal chairs. Shaw tapped her ear, but her phone did not have a signal. She carefully looked up and down the abandoned platform once more, and seeing no one else there, approached Root.

"Hmm, I was wondering when one of you would show up," Root said, even before lifting her head to look at Shaw.

"What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for the train."

Shaw looked up and down the desolate platform once more.

"Think you've been off your meds for too long."

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"

"Let's get you back where you belong."

Shaw picked the handcuffs holding Root to the chair, and quickly re-attached them to Root's wrists. They followed the station blue-prints on Shaw's phone toward a disused exit off the abandoned part of the station.

.

.

Reese parked his car and walked up to 170th street station. A quick look around the elevated station, supplemented by a satellite image he brought up on his phone, informed him that there was only a single entrance and exit. He had about 7 minutes before the train Fullerton had boarded would stop there, so he looked around for cover. A food truck still busy with dinner patrons seemed like an excellent excuse for his lingering, so he got in line and soon sat on a bench by the little park at the station exit, eating a desert-like thing called an 'elephant ear'. The sun had set a while ago, and the dirty orange light of dusk was replaced by the spotty yellow illumination of the street lights coming on. Reese didn't stir when Fullerton came into view at the station exit. Once his target had crossed the street and disappeared between two buildings, he started tailing him.

After only a few minute's walk, Fullerton entered a red-bricked apartment building. Reese managed to get in the door thanks to an older lady going out to walk a small dog, and just caught a glimpse of the elevator going up. He ran up the stairs, stopping at each level. The elevator stopped on the third floor, and he watched Fullerton enter unit 15. Reese lingered for a few minutes, then went back out on the street. He saw Carter's cruiser parked in the shade midway between two streetlights, and got into the passenger seat.

"So, we're after some sort of master criminal tonight."

"It would appear so. I tracked him to this apartment building, unit 15," he pointed at a window on the 3rd floor. "Did you get anything on the man surveilling the other apartment building?"

"As a matter of fact, he wasn't surveilling the apartment building. He's one of Elias's men, and was tailing the man who _is_ surveilling the apartment building."

Reese raised an eyebrow.

"There are two of them, taking turns, and they are part of some sort of anti-technology group, operating out of several big cities. Elias' men have been keeping tabs on their movements in New York."

Carter reached for a manila folder on her back seat and handed it to Reese.

"Called in some favours; these are all the reports, country-wide, linked to suspected members of the group."

Reese leaved through some twenty police reports.

"You don't do things half way, do you?"

"Hey, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right."

"Hmm. Would you mind watching the building while I retrieve my car, and then take this folder to Finch?"

"Sure," she said, in that tone of voice that warned him that there better be a good point to all the trouble she was going to, all without asking questions.

"Thank you."

.

Reese drove up in his car and parked in the nearest badly-lit spot with a good view of the apartment building entrance. He nodded at Carter as she drove off.

.

 

 

**Chapter 3**

 

The people in Finch's safe-house had split into groups. Westen, Axe, and Haagen were going over Fullerton's itinerary from the previous four months. Glenanne, Porter, and Leon were at the other side of the living room, compiling the account history of Fullerton's money, as far as Leon could track it. The mood in the room changed after Reese called in with the information on Fullerton's whereabouts. Glenanne, for the first time since Fullerton had revealed his plans for them, felt like she had a grip on her life again. Westen, too, had to admit that they finally seemed to be a step ahead of Fullerton. He still was not too enthusiastic about giving up some control of their situation to Finch and his associates, and he knew better than to expect the finish line to remain where he could see it now, but he was a lot less weary about working with Finch.

Finch had retreated to one of the bedrooms to clear his mind, when Shaw called to announce that she had Root. He was torn as to whether to bring Shaw, Root - and Carter for that matter - all to this temporary HQ, or to meet them at separate locations. He knew Reese would go with the separate locations, but it seemed impractical for him to be driving across the city, when all the information was flowing together here. Besides, he reminded himself, the Machine _liked_ these people. The same way it had liked Reese, and Reese had worked out pretty well. Westen's crew wouldn't take kindly to him hiding Root on them. If she revealed anything about the Machine, he could always invoke her mental state.

He directed Shaw to bring Root to the safe-house.

.

Shaw did not flinch when she was greeted by a handgun on entering the house. She did have to look twice, taking in the living-room. There were no less than 5 whiteboards arranged along the left and right walls, with dates, places and numbers scribbled all over them. More surprising to her though were the empty pizza boxes scattered on the coffee table, and the sheer number of people in the house. Even knowing that they were currently working with Westen and his team, she did not quite believe it until seeing it with her own eyes.

Not that she cared that much; she accepted the presence of the new players as naturally as she did the presence of birds in the park, and acknowledged it only to the extend necessary to assess them as possible threats.

"Hello, Ms. Farrow," Finch said, using the name Westen and his team knew Root as.

"Harold," Root answered with a sincere smile that evoked a cold stare from Finch, who gestured down the hall, toward one of the bedrooms. "This way, Ms. Shaw."

"I didn't know we were having a party," Shaw said while passing Finch. "There any pizza left?"

"I would expect not, but I can always order more."

"I'd rather steak."

They had arrived in the bedroom, and Shaw handcuffed Root to a chair again. The chair had been ducttaped to the bedframe, in preparation for their arrival.

"At least this one's more comfortable than the last one," she said to Root.

"All yours," she then said to Finch. "You know where to find me. Remember you owe me a steak."

With that, she left the room, passing between Westen and Glenanne who had followed them and were standing by the doorframe. She stroked Bear's back on her way out the front door.

Westen kept a poker-face on, but all the concerns he had originally had about working with Finch and his crew was back. He had known people like Shaw; cold, methodical, ruthless. He saw that Finch had only the slightest bit of control over her. That little bit of control was surprising in and of itself, but who knew if it would be enough? He was so done working with sociopaths. At least she did not show any interest in involving herself further in their operation.

.

Westen and Glenanne joined Finch in the bedroom. Root took an interest in Glenanne, looking her up and down; Westen did not like it.

"What did Anson Fullerton want from you?" he asked, eyes steady on Root, who did not seem to hear him.

"I want to talk to Fiona, alone."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Finch said.

"Not happening."

Westen was startled when Root, after a moment's immobility, shifted her head to meet his stare. "Anson killed your father, and more members of your family will die because of him. Let me talk to Fiona."

Westen held her gaze for a moment, then looked to Finch. He could not tell if the concern on the older man's face was over him, or over something else.

Glenanne was annoyed now; she did not need supervision. "It's fine! We can have a talk, woman to woman."

Westen and Finch looked at each other, then at Glenanne. Westen turned around and stepped out of the room - he knew this was another argument he would lose.

Root cocked her head at Finch.

"You can trust me, Harold."

A reassurance that she would not reveal the existence of the Machine. Maybe.

"And you can trust me. Whatever you have to say to Ms. Glenanne, you can say in front of me."

"Harold ..." she drew out his name, "but this doesn't concern you."

Finch looked at Glenanne again.

"I'm a big girl. Just leave us alone already."

Finch nodded, reluctantly, and Glenanne closed the door after him.

Root sat up straighter and the dreamy look she had had about her disappeared. Her voice was firm, to the point. "I know where Anson is keeping the evidence against you. More than that, I know where you can find evidence to exonerate yourself."

"What do you want?"

"To begin with, a cell phone."

Glenanne held up her burner phone, and Root shifted sideways so Glenanne could push it in her pant pocket.

"Next, my name is Root."

"Fair enough."

"There's a server farm outside of Davenport, Iowa. It was damaged two months ago and shut down. I need you to get the hard drives from the intact servers and connect them to the internet."

"Is that where Anson has the evidence stored?"

"No. The evidence against you is in an abandoned gold mine, between Wetmore and Sault Saint Marie, northern Michigan."

"Okay. Then what is at the server farm?"

"Pertinent information. Get it online and I'll tell you where to find the evidence you need to come out clean. And I'll help you with the gold mine. Without my help, you'll be killed there."

"Did Anson tell you all this?"

"Uh, no."

"Then how do you know?"

"I've got a direct line to a higher power."

"I see, well, we'll take that into consideration."

Glenanne got up and left the room. Partially because she saw no point in talking to a mad woman, and partially because she heard some commotion in the hall.

.

.

Finch opened the door for Carter but did not let her in.

"You have a file for me?"

"I do." She tried to look past him into the house. "Whatcha up to?"

"Nothing ... illegal."

"Hmmm. Fine, here's the file." She pushed it into his hand with more force than was necessary.

"Thank you, Officer Carter."

"Yeah, goodnight. Whatever you're up to."

.

Finch took the file to the bedroom where he had been working. Porter was following him and Glenanne was just coming out of Root's room.

"Wanna share?" Porter asked Finch.

"Huh? Oh, I'm not sure yet that this is related at all to your situation. I will let you know if it is."

"Maybe we should all decide, you know, _together_ , if it's relevant."

"Jesse." Glenanne said in a strict voice, just as Finch was instinctively looking around for Bear.

"What? I'm just saying, it's something to do with Haagen. We should _all_ have a look."

Finch had that 'deer in the headlights' look, and even though Glenanne knew that he was not that harmless, or that helpless, she felt she had to take his side.

"Let him work."

Jesse threw his arms up in the air.

"Hey, it's your life," he said and returned to the living room.

Finch addressed Glenanne.

"What did Ms. Farrow have to say to you?"

"Nothing that made any sense. I should go see what the guys in the living room have come up with."

Finch seemed satisfied with that answer, as he nodded and then went to sit at the small desk next to the bed. Glenanne lingered for a moment, then leaned the door partially shut and left him to study the file.

The police reports were sparse on details. The targets were always server farms, antenna stations, or central internet hubs. The damage done was minor in most cases, especially for the earlier incidents, but they had managed some bigger hits recently. Whether related to their current situation or not, these cases were certainly something to follow up on.

.

.

Reese raised his eyes above the roof of the building across the street. He could make out part of the constellation of Cassiopeia in the night sky. The milky way was a smeary streak through the fog and light of the city. The windows of apartment 15 had just gone dark, giving him only the reflection of the passing clouds, backlit by the full moon, to watch.

The street was empty; no late night bar-hoppers or party-goers coming home. Every once in a while, the third streetlight on the left flickered, redirecting his attention away from the reflection of the steady flow of clouds in the windows and toward the erratic hopping of the shadows on the street.

"Hey Finch, are you there?"

Finch put down the police report in his hand and tapped his phone.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Reese?"

Reese's red dot came up on the map of the city.

"The street light in front of house No. 34 is broken."

"And ...?"

"It's ... distracting."

He really just wanted to check in with Finch, and this was as good an excuse as any.

"Would you like me to shut off the power to your section of the city?"

"Eh, that might spook Mr. Fullerton."

"In that case, I'll file a complaint with City Services first thing in the morning."

"Sounds good."

"Is that all, Mr. Reese?"

"It looks like Fullerton has just gone to bed. Did Carter get that file to you?"

"She did. I'm going over it right now."

"Let me know if anything comes up."

"I'll leave the line open, Mr. Reese."

Reese's solitary watch was now accompanied by the soundtrack of shuffling papers and fingers tapping on a keyboard.

.

"Uh, Mr. Finch?"

Axe knocked on the doorframe and peeked his head through the gap left by the partially closed door.

"So, we've got something, thought you might want to have a look."

"Certainly."

Finch pocketed his cell phone and followed Axe into the living room. Leon was already speaking.

"Okay so, payments go out regularly from these three accounts to a number of people living in or around Wetmore, northern Michigan."

Westen continued. "Fullerton has come through Sawyer Airport - just shy of 40 miles from Wetmore - no less than ten times in the past four months." He was pointing at several circled items on Haagen's whiteboard. "That's the time since Haagen has been working for him. Each time he arrives on a Wednesday and leaves on the Friday of the same week."

Leon continued, quite proud of himself. "Large sums of money have come out of these four accounts, to companies either in the area, or who later shipped equipment to the area."

"So it seems like Mr. Finley should go and chat with some of the people of Wetmore."

"Sam, you can't go. Anson knows you," Westen said.

"He's here, Mr. Reese is keeping an eye on him, can't hurt to look., Axe replied.

"If someone there recognizes you, we're busted."

"Oh hell Michael, we can't just sit here doing nothing."

"We're not do-"

"What's in Davenport, Iowa?" Glenanne asked into the assembly, interrupting Westen.

Finch looked up and nearly raised an eyebrow. "Why do you ask about that?"

"Please?" Glenanne turned to him.

Finch was not sure where this was going, but he saw no reason not to tell them.

"A server farm just outside Davenport was sabotaged by possible members of the same group that is watching Mr. Eggebraten's apartment. The server farm was shut down as a result. It's in one of the police reports I received earlier."

"Why do we care about some server farm?" Porter asked.

Everyone looked at Glenanne. She sighed.

"Root told me that the evidence against me is in an abandoned gold mine near Wetmore. She also said people would get killed if we tried to go there without her help. She'll help us if we retrieve the hard drives from the server farm in Davenport and bring them online. Plus she'll provide evidence that will prove I wasn't responsible for the explosion at the British Consulate."

Weston stood and folded his arms in front of him. "She looks like she's a few marbles short of a set, we can't go on what she says."

"I strongly advise against listening to her," Finch said.

"Three of the companies that received money out of Fullerton's accounts are in the mining industry. Just saying," Leon blurted out.

"You said she was some kind of computer hacker and occasional assassin for hire? Sounds like someone Anson would do business with, no? So she's a bit - frazzled - right now. Doesn't mean her intel isn't good," Porter said in response.

"Could it hurt to restore some old servers?" Axe asked.

"I do not think it is a good idea to indulge Ms. Farrow's wishes. There might be ... unintended consequences."

"Yeah? What bad could possibly be on those servers?"

"I don't know. That's what worries me."

"So you check it out first."

Westen sensed that the to and fro between Axe and Finch was going nowhere, and he doubted that Root could be of any help to them, anyway. "Servers or no servers, there's something up there in Michigan."

"Why," Haagen spoke up, to everyone's surprise, "would he take some evidence all the way from Miami, Florida to Michigan?"

Weston turned toward him, arms still folded. "Because this way, he can see us coming if we go for it."

Glenanne pushed herself off he back of the sofa she'd been leaning against. "Well, let's go for it."

"Fiona, let's think this through for a moment. We don't know if Ms. Farrow -"

"Root," she corrected him.

"- Root, is even telling the truth. We only get one shot at this."

"Finch, Sam and Jesse go to Davenport and fix those servers. You and I go to Wetmore and find that mine. Reese and Haagen keep us updated on what Anson is up to."

Jesse pushed his chair out from the desk to better face the other people in the room. "So you have about until tomorrow morning, when Anson will notice Root is missing, to find that mine."

"He doesn't know we have her." Glenanne said to him.

"How many enemies you think he's got?"

"I'm sure he has plenty."

"Until he checks and sees we weren't on that flight back to Miami and then that narrows it down quite a bit," Jesse said.

Haagen was getting the hang of this game and chimed up. "So you alter the flight records."

"Yes," Weston said and turned to Haagen, "and Haagen needs to get back to his apartment."

"Hey no way man."

Porter stood up and stretched. "I'll take him."

Finch's phone beeped. He put it on speaker.

"Fullerton just left the apartment building and is walking toward the subway station. He's in a hurry."

"Haagen?" Westen asked.

"Nothing."

Axe turned on his seat to look again at the screens on the desk in front of him. "If Mr. Slow-Reader got a message to him, he's probably on his way to check on Root."

Glenanne looked at Finch. "So, can you alter those flight records?"

"Yes. I'll do it right away." Finch walked into the hallway to the bedroom where his laptop was.

"Put us on a flight to Wetmore while you're at it?" Glenanne said after him.

Finch turned around. "Us who?"

"Root, Michael, me."

"Root stays here. She's dangerous. You can't trust her."

"Doesn't look that dangerous to me."

"Looks are often deceiving, Mr. Porter."

"If you say so."

Weston sighed. "Alright, new plan. Jesse, you take Haagen, watch the incoming assignments and make sure he stays alive. Sam, you fly back to Miami; if there's fallout, you make sure my family is unaffected. Fi and I go for the gold mine, Finch and his team take the server farm."

"Not gonna work that way." Root yelled from her room.

"Well, if we're going to hit that place, we better hit hard and do it now."

"From what I've seen, Mr. Fullerton is a careful and prudent man. He will have taken precautions for just the situation where you two may storm his castle."

"What do you suggest then?"

"Since it's so important to Ms. Farrow," - _'important to the operation of the Machine'_ he wanted to say, - "I will just buy the servers and have them fixed. There's no need for any of us to go there."

"Not gonna _work_ that way!" Root yelled again.

Finch's cell phone beeped again.

"He's gone, I lost him," Reese said, pushing his way past idle passengers in the train car.

"I see."

Disappointment rippled through the room, but no one was surprised. Finch refactored their plan. "There is no sense to you waiting around hoping to pick up his trail when we have Haagen. I think it would be best for you to help Ms. Glenanne and Mr. Westen investigate the gold mine, instead. My jet should be ready by the time you get to the airport. I'll put Ms. Shaw on Mr. Fullerton if necessary."

"Roger that."

Finch was just as happy for Reese to accompany Westen and Glenanne - much better than letting them take Root. He looked at Glenanne, who sighed and nodded.

Another call was waiting for Finch already.

"Hi, it's Carter. Thought you may want to know that the guys you had me check out are no longer just watching. They are moving in. Should I be concerned?"

"No, Officer, but thank you."

"You sure of that."

"Yes, the person they are looking for is no longer there. Thank you again." Finch turned his attention back to the people in the room with him. He understood their hurry now - Fullerton was cutting ties, and they did not want to lose their advantage.

"It seems like it would be prudent for you to get going right away. You can take my jet to Wetmore, Reese will meet you at the airport. I will buy the server farm, and change the flight records to make it seem like you all went back to Miami."

.

.

Westen and Glenanne dropped Axe off at the public terminal of the airport, then followed Finch's directions to a much smaller and much more exclusive airstrip. When they walked into the private hangar, Reese was loading three black, nondescript backpacks on Finch's small 10-seat jet, while the pilot, a quiet man in his forties who did not ask any questions, was already doing the pre-flight checks. Reese came out the door on the side of the plane to greet them with new phones.

"Finch special edition."

"I hope you have more than phones, because all our goodies are back in Miami."

Reese led them inside and pointed toward the backpacks strapped in against the back of the passenger cabin. Westen added his and Glenanne's bags to the pile while Glenanne took a peek inside one of them and found several more phones, earpieces, trackers, bugs and some assorted small arms. She smiled in appreciation while Westen just nodded in acknowledgement of the equipment.

Newly heartened, Glenanne took a seat closest to the cockpit. Reese sat down in a middle row, and was not surprised when Westen chose the seat right next to him. The two men quietly contemplated the headrests in front of them throughout take-off. The city lights disappeared from beneath the plane, and Westen finally broke the silence.

"Why are you helping us?"

Now that they had Root back, it was a fair question.

"It's what we do."

"No, you are given social security numbers of people in trouble, and you help them. Did you get one of our numbers?"

"They're not _always_ in trouble. Sometimes, they are the ones causing it."

Westen turned to look at him with a face so strenuously kept blank that a skilled musician may have ben able to evoke an angry tune on the tense muscles.

"We did not get either of your numbers."

"But you're still helping us."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"We're ... nice?"

Westen got up to sit in a different row.

"Wait." Reese paused until Westen had re-taken his seat. "You're worried we'll end up working against you. And frankly, I can't say for sure that we won't, because I still don't know exactly why I'm here, either. Believe me, if I told you all I know, it wouldn't make any difference. Something is pulling strings in the background and it wants us working together. I think one thing we can both agree on is that Mr. Fullerton is a dangerous individual who needs to be ... dealt with."

"You just do what you're told. No questions. Point and click."

A hint of a sad smile flickered on Reese's face.

"Are you telling me you always had all the details - any of the details - in the missions you worked for the CIA."

"I knew who was giving the orders."

"All you knew is that strings had been pulled and you ended up with a mission. Maybe it's easier to hang on to the idea that the outcome of the mission justified the cost, if it came through an alphabet organization. But in the end, you don't know."

Glenanne struggled to overhear the conversation between the two men. She listened for a while longer, but no sound besides the roaring of the engines reached her ears.

.

When they arrived at Sawyer Airport, a dark SUV was waiting for them and they transferred their bags to the vehicle. With the help of shipping manifests and historic records, Finch had located the old gold mine, and the location was already on Reese's phone. Thus, near 3am, after a good 3 hour flight and 40 minute drive, Reese, Westen and Glenanne were walking down a dark dirt path through the woods toward a former gold mine.

Reese did not have a good feeling about the plan, or rather the lack of a plan. Their map of the surface buildings, which was all they had, was old and sketchy at best. What had him particularly worried was that there was no satellite imagery of the area - redacted - which probably meant government involvement of some kind. The idea was akin to exploratory surgery on an alien. They would go in through an airshaft - should it actually still exist -, make note of relevant intel such as guards and surveillance equipment on the way, and try to work their way to wherever that elusive evidence against Glenanne was held.

Permanently crippling Fullerton's operation would be a plus. Finding out what exactly he was up to was optional. Reese had advised more caution, but he understood his companion's willingness to take the risk, too. Based on what he had learned about how Fullerton operates, he agreed that going in quickly would give them the best chance - if only because it was likely their one and only chance - of reaching the objective.

To Glenanne, this undertaking was rather like another round of the shadow-boxing match they had been forced into. Another punch into the dark, hoping this one would finally hit a solid target. She could not be blamed for being optimistic about this latest round. The pattern of Finch and Reese providing useful intel, just the right equipment, and generally stepping up and putting an operation on solid ground when she did not dare expect it was by then well established.

The notion had taken hold in Westen's mind as well, as uneasy as he was about working with people - putting his and Fiona's fate in the hands of people - whose motivations and objectives remained hidden from him. At least for now, he was reasonably certain that their goals were aligned, and in case this changed, he was ready to recalculate his route.

.

They had the historic map of surface buildings on their phones, and flashlights which erratically illuminated tiny bits of the forrest. The outlines of the trees dissolved into the shapes of the passing clouds above, behind which the location of the full moon could only be guessed. The night-vision goggles proved more hindrance than help, so they were back in the rucksacks.

Not wanting to come to the front gate, the taciturn group soon left the path and opted to make their own way through the forest, which was silent but for the faint whispering of autumn leaves in the cold wind, and the rustling of fallen leaves and twigs under their steps. They all tensed in unison the few times an owl called out into the night.

Eventually they reached a tall chain link fence, partially overgrown with wild grapes. There was no visible structure, not even a clearing, on the other side; the forest just seemed to continue on, oblivious to the artificial barrier. According to the map, they were only a couple hundred meters from an air shaft into the mine. They investigated the surrounding area and trees and tested the fence. Finding no sign of guards or cameras, no lasers nor electric current, they carefully looked the area over once more, and again found no additional security measures. A pair of wire-cutters was all it took to get through.

Their penetration of the fence had as little effect on their surroundings as the fence itself had on the forest. They waited by the fence for a couple of minutes. The marbled grey of the nightly clouds was not overridden by floodlights, and the whispering of the wind in the trees was not drowned out by sirens. Reese found himself hoping for some warning sign that did not come.

Glenanne urged them on, so they left the fence behind and finally the underbrush became sparser. True to the map, they soon spotted a brick structure looking like a larger dog house with ventilation slots all around the side, in the middle of a small meadow. The spot would have been nice for a picnic in summer, but the thought of picnics was far from their minds, and at this time of year the knee-height grasses and weeds were brown and slimy wet.

The thick, rusty door at the front of the structure came open easily enough. Inside, the grating covering the air-shaft looked like it needed some lock picking and maybe a bit of brute force. All in all, the place appeared just the way one might expect from the facilities of a mining operating abandoned 30 years ago - old, rusted, overgrown and deserted.

.

 

 

**Chapter 4**

 

In the living-room of Finch's safe-house, Haagen, Leon and Porter were asleep on the sofa, love-seat and armchair, respectively. The computer screens on the desk had gone into power-save mode hours ago, and even Finch - back at the Library - had been listening-in to the bugs there less and less frequently, and finally stopped altogether, in favour of keeping tabs on his operatives in the field, and sorting out the acquisition of a damaged server farm, the latter of which proved more difficult than expected.

Porter was woken by banging and yelling from Root's room.

"Hey, anyone out there? I need to go to the washroom."

He rubbed his eyes and stood up.

"Hang on."

He found Root sitting on the side of the bed. She cocked her head. "I need to go to the washroom, now."

She did not look that dangerous to him, maybe she was a good hacker, but he could deal with 120 lb of geek. He undid her handcuffs and then suddenly he was on the floor and she had his firearm. He was back up on his feet in an instant and then his left leg gave out from under him.

The gunshot finally woke Haagen and Leon, who looked on, terrified, as Root walked by them and left through the front door.

.

Twenty minutes later, Haagen and Leon had the investigating police officers convinced that the reported gunshot was to blame on a computer game, and speakers with their volume turned up too high. With the whiteboards rolled into a spare room, the pizza boxes and empty soft-drink cans still on the table, and the computer screens turned on to a game hastily installed, the two geeks had an easy time fooling the policemen. Shaw entered the house as soon as the police left, carrying a bulky first-aid kit to supplement the supplies there. Finch and Carter ran into each other at the front steps of the safe-house ten minutes later.

"Officer. Is there something I can do for you?"

"Oh don't give me that. You know why I'm here. Suspected gunshot - video game my ass!"

"Oh, that. I think we have it under control. How did you know anyway?"

"You have your sources, I have mine. Now open that door."

.

.

Westen and Reese entered the small brick structure protecting the air-shaft. The structure was just big enough for two people to work on the protective shaft cover. Glenanne remained outside, going through their supply bags to retrieve ropes, and set aside some small charges - just in case. When she heard the metal door fall closed behind her, she did not make much of it. The wind had picked up, and had probably made the door its plaything. But then she heard the clicking sound of electric relays closing, followed by the scraping sound of metal rubbing against metal. She ran to the door and pulled on it, she could hear the guys pushing from the inside, but it would not budge. Magnetic pins had extended from the floor to hold it shut.

"Fi, get out of here!" Westen yelled through a ventilation slit.

"I've got some blasting wire here, I can open this door!"

"Not without killing us, and not before Fullerton's men get here!"

"Give me some credit, Michael!"

"Fi, you're good, but there's no time to do this properly."

Reese pulled out his phone, reset it, then smashed the phone and the sim card separately. Westen followed his lead. They had both been there before. They knew the drill.

Glenanne banged on the door in frustration. She could already hear the approaching 4-wheelers. They were close. She turned and leaned her back against the door, watching the headlights get brighter. It felt as if the world was falling apart on top of her, like the roof of the consulate had fallen on those guards, and there was no way out. She considered giving up, to just stand there for the goons to find - why should she escape while the people she had drafted into helping her execute this desperate excuse for a plan would be caught? - but as the vehicles drew closer, the notion passed.

"I'll be back with reinforcements," she shouted at the door before grabbing the flashlight and her rucksack, and running for the trees. She slipped through the opening in the fence and disappeared into the dark underbrush. As soon as she was reasonably certain that no goons were on her tail, she dialled Finch.

"Ms. Glenanne, what is your situation? I lost Mr. Reese's and Mr. Westen's signals."

"It was a trap - they're trapped. I need Jesse here … any reinforcements you got, and equipment- ". She was out of breath, forcing the words out in between clearing fallen trees and steering clear of standing ones.

"Ms. Glenanne."

The sound of blood rushing in her ears mingled with the rustling of the leaves in the wind and under her feet, and drowned out the sound from the earpiece. She slowed down and took a long breath.

"Root escaped. She shot Jesse in the leg."

She drew two more breaths, letting the information sink in. This would not derail her - her mind was made up to stand and fight.

"How is he?" she asked with more composure than Finch had expected.

"He's going to be okay, Shaw insures me the injury is not serious. Are you alright?" Finch's voice had tender notes, even with the worry and upset he felt.

"I'm not hurt. But I have to get out of here."

A calm statement of fact. Finch knew that tone of voice very well. Shaw used it a lot, and Reese did on occasion. Those occasions were never good ones.

The SUV was in Glenanne's sight now. The sides of the dark vehicle shimmered in moonlight shining through a transient opening in the cloud cover. She increased her pace again, and circled around the vehicle. Once she was sure that Fullerton's men had not gotten there first, she approached. The door was not locked, so she slipped in and threw the backpack on the passenger seat.

Finch's voice in her ear startled her. "Alright, I've just put some coordinates on your phone. They will lead you to a cottage. Wait there, rest, I'll send help."

"A cottage. Whose cottage?"

"Well mine of course."

"You have a cottage up here?"

She was already on the highway, speeding toward the destination marked on her phone.

"Finch?"

"Yes. I do now. You're driving too fast."

Under normal - and even most not so normal - circumstances, criticism of her driving style quickly put her into a defensive mood. Finch was not worried for his own safety though, and with the sky falling, she found it comforting to have someone care about her future, so the "I'm fine" left her lips with barely enough power to make it into the microphone.

Finch's first instinct was to argue the facts. How likely it was that she would lose control of the vehicle; how many avoidable accidents happened this way every year, many with fatalities; how she would not be of any help to Westen and Reese, wrapped around a tree. Instead, he paused. His experience with Reese in these types of situations had taught him that the facts did not matter. She knew the risk of what she was doing. They all did, maybe better than he could understand.

"Very well. I'll be on the line, if you need anything."

A few minutes later, Glenanne slowed the vehicle to a more sensible speed. Finch was not entirely sure what he had just done, but was glad it had worked.

"I need to call Sam!" Glenanne suddenly announced, and then promptly followed through.

.

She arrived at the small cottage a little while later. From what she could make out by the light above the front door, it was a nondescript lakeside house in somewhat ill repair on an overgrown lot off of one of the few paved streets in the area. A middle-aged, heavyset woman wearing a flowery apron greeted her at the door and handed her a key.

"Here you go, Dear, you've got fresh sheets and there's some food in the fridge."

"Thank you," she called after the woman who was already out the door and getting into a small truck.

.

.

"So," Carter said to Finch. She'd been listening in on the last part of his conversation with Glenanne, after checking out the not-so-virtual gun shot victim. Besides - and, she guessed, not just because of - the man in the next room sporting a fresh hole in his leg, Finch was perturbed - the kind of perturbed he reserved for Reese being in danger - and her idle curiosity about what her vigilantes were up to was replaced by determination to learn what was going on, and to help. The fact that they had not come to her sooner, for anything more substantial than errands, made her think that whatever they were involved in now was serious - either a lot more serious than they had expected, or so serious that they kept her out of the loop because they did not want to endanger her.

"It seems we could use your help, after all."

She was glad Finch confirmed her assessment.

"Uh-huh."

"How do you feel about taking a trip to Michigan?"

.

.

Reese looked up when the heavy steel door opened to his left, and the single lightbulb hanging from the vaulted ceiling came on. They were underground, in a stope - a short tunnel, maybe 7 metres deep and 4 metres wide - off of a main drift. The walls were nothing but bare jagged rock, covered by a wire mesh. The stope was closed off against the drift by a brick wall through which led the recently opened door. Reese was sitting on the dusty clay floor, hands cuffed behind his back, and the cuffs attached by a short chain to the protruding end of a rockbolt at waist level. Westen was sitting against the opposite side of the stope, secured the same way.

Fullerton entered the stope and Westen stood up.

"I thought you were better at following orders."

"I guess you thought wrong."

"Yes, regretfully so. And we'll both have to live with the consequences now, don't we. Who's your friend?"

Fullerton looked at Reese.

"Speak up now, I don't bite."

"I'm just ehm ... a concerned third party?"

Fullerton nodded at a couple of burly men lingering in the drift just outside the door. They approached Reese and one of them forced Reese's shoulder against the wall to gain access to the ex-op's back, while the other one pushed Reese's right hand onto an electronic tablet.

"I don't suppose that Ms. Glenanne was with you, was she? It doesn't really matter. I've sent that voice recording, and video footage of her planting explosives at the British Consulate, to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. She'll be on every watchlist from here to London by mid-morning."

"You won't get away with this!" Westen pulled at his chains. "I _will_ get out of here and then I'll put a bullet in you!"

Fullerton's lips curved into a meagre smile. He took some pleasure agitating the stoic spy, and he was going to milk it, if only to teach his asset a lesson. He was not done with Westen yet.

"Maybe. But not before I've sent this bag of goodies back to Miami." He held up a cardboard box. "A good lawyer can maybe talk her out of the video footage, but this seals the deal. She will be rotting in some high security prison for the rest of her life!"

Anger and frustration were struggling to break free on Westen's face. He gave his chains another pull, but his heart was not in it anymore. They were trapped, the chains were solid, and Glenanne's fate was sealed. He brought his facial expression under control, unwilling to feed Fullerton's satisfaction at seeing him so discomposed.

Reese seemed to be looking at the floor, an indifferent bystander, but he was studying Fullerton, his men, the door, what he could see of the drift outside. He took note of the guards (short neat hair but not military-buzz-cut, black shirts, navy blue pants), weapons (each carried one plain Colt), details of the brick wall (looked new, followed the irregular vertical cross-section of the vault thus sealing the room perfectly), the air duct that terminated above the steel door (too small to creep through, even if the grating could be removed), the room itself (some unterminated wires protruding from the brick wall near the ceiling, no obvious cameras).

From the moment they had become trapped at the air-shaft collar, he had been in full-on stone-face operative mode. Operational tactics and skills dominated his thinking, his very being. Any empathy with Westen's situation, any painful memories of past missions, were distant ghosts howling faintly in the most remote part of his mind.

The light went out again. He heard Westen's chains rattle once more as the other man dropped to the floor. After that, the silence was only broken by the faint hum coming from the air duct.

.

.

Glenanne had fallen asleep, despite herself, on the sofa next to the fireplace in the main room of the cottage. She was woken by the sound of voices from the adjacent kitchen.

"No, I think she'll be pissed if she finds out we got here and didn't wake her," came Shaw's voice, delivered without any detectable concern; she was just reinforcing a point she had presumably made earlier.

"I'm awake." Glenanne said and sat up. She looked around the room, quite changed from the night before, now that the morning light illuminated it. The fireplace was on the wall to her right, across from her was a rust-red sofa clashing in colour and style with the checkered purple one she was sitting on, and behind it the open front door where Shaw was standing with a large computer tower on her shoulder. A staircase behind Glenanne led to the upper level, which housed two bedrooms and a bathroom.

The door into the kitchen was to her left, behind the wooden dinner table, and Finch, and Carter, tea and coffees in hand, were standing in the doorframe. "Can I offer you some tea?" Finch asked.

"We also brought a bag of C4 with all the fixings, assorted semi-automatics, some rifles - don't know where Reese finds this stuff - a rocket launcher, and mine gear. Plus more of all the regular spy stuff," Shaw said in a steady monotone while depositing the computer tower on the far side of the dining table next to a keyboard and mouse, and Finch's laptop. Glenanne could not tell if Shaw was just being efficient, or whether the apathetic woman sensed that a plan forward, especially one that involved C4 and rocket launchers, would be more welcome than tea.

Carter sat down at the other end of the table, and pushed aside some large paper maps of the area around the mine to make space for her cup.

"You should also probably know that there's a warrant out for your arrest. Now Finch here tells me it's a setup, so I'm gonna let it pass, but you're pretty much grounded here."

"I'm truly sorry your plan did not work out, Ms. Glenanne. I will do everything in my power to ... mitigate ... the implications, once we know what kind of evidence has been provided. Right now, though, I would like to focus on bringing back Mr. Westen and Mr. Reese." Finch had set his cup of tea beside the computer tower and started pulling a network cable from the wall to the table.

"I'm sorry."

Finch connected the cable and looked at her.

"The mission failed. Let's do better this time."

Glenanne smiled at him. She considered her unlikely ensemble of allies. The fact that Fullerton had made true on his threat was overshadowed by the fact that she had a team. And C4. She may go to prison, but taking out Fullerton in the process was still a real possibility.

.

.

"So, John Reese. Here I am, casting a net for tuna and what do I drag up, a dolphin. Now it doesn't appear as if you two ever met during your time with the Agency. I must conclude, then, that what unites you here is of a more recent nature."

He paused to look each man over.

"Tell me about, Ms. Farrow - May ... Root."

Fullerton kept his eyes on Reese, waiting to see if the face of the spy who was officially M.I.A. would betray some name recognition. A twitching muscle maybe. Not because he needed this sign to get closer to the truth. He already had that. He was just calibrating his understanding of Reese's reactions.

"Yes, I know you know her, Mr. Reese. See, security cameras, they're everywhere now. It took my techs mere minutes to find your face in the hospital's digital surveillance archives. But you are well aware of that, too."

Reese's stone-face was firmly in place as he raised his eyes to stare back at Fullerton - he could have been a feature in the rough rock wall he was chained to.

"As you can see," Fullerton was still speaking to Reese but looked at Westen now, "I don't make idle threats, and I have varied means of getting what I want." He looked back at Reese and took a step closer to him. "So I think that we will be able to come to an arrangement. How do you feel about your current employers?"

"Don't have any. Freelancing."

Fullerton dropped a picture on the floor in front of Reese. It was a still from the security camera feed at Stoneridge, and it showed Finch talking to Root. Reese carefully smoothed out the expression on his face. The very real possibility of danger to Finch and their operation suddenly made the ghosts in the back of his mind a lot more corporeal. If Fullerton had gotten this far in a morning, he would be on Finch's heels by nightfall.

"I don't know that man."

"Hmm."

Fullerton left again, and Reese and Westen remained once more in darkness.

.

.

The ladies had been discussing strategies for breaking into the mine, most of which Finch did not approve of, for the past hour, though he was short on options, too. He still could not find any online information on this gold mine, besides the old historical records. Clearly, modifications had been made since. The money that had come out of Fullerton's accounts was not nearly enough to have payed for even a fraction of the cost of renovating the mine to the point where it was safe to enter, let alone do anything useful there.

There was a knock on the door. Everyone looked at Finch, who shrugged his shoulders. Carter went over to the window overseeing the front yard.

"Some woman. Should I open it?"

Finch shrugged; Shaw and Glenanne both held their firearms ready. Carter opened the door.

"Hi, how can I help you?"

"Actually, I thought _I_ could help _you_."

Finch froze. Shaw raised her firearm and hurried to the door.

"Excuse m-" Carter was interrupted by Shaw pushing her aside and flinging the door open all the way. Shaw bid Root inside with a wave of her .45.

"So, gas, not gonna work. They have several stages of air filters and an air quality monitoring system. What you need is someone with insider knowledge." Root seemed completely oblivious, or maybe indifferent, to the weapons pointing at her. "Oh, and I went and got these." Root held out a bag filled to the brim with harddrives. "You're welcome, and I hope you used a disposable cover identity when you tried to buy the servers."

Finch stood frozen in shock. "Tie her up, please," he told Shaw.

Shaw patted Root down and relieved her of the bag of harddrives, her firearm, a knife, and a cellphone.

"Finch, who is this?" Carter asked.

"But Harold, I came here to help."

"We don't need your help, Ms. Groves." He forgot all about using her alias. Carter raised an eyebrow at the mention of that name.

"Oh but you do. If you don't let me help, John and Michael are going to die, Fiona will go to jail, and that's just the beginning."

"How did shooting Jesse help?" Glenanne said, more a comment than a question. Carter raised another eyebrow - the picture of the situation becoming, if not clearer, then at least more complete.

"Alright, I'm sorry I shot his leg. It was necessary."

"Since when do you care, Ms. Groves, about whether or not people die?" He knew he should not have asked that as soon as he said it.

"Well personally, I don't - much - but She does."

"Please secure her, Ms. Shaw." Finch repeated.

"Got some handcuffs?" Shaw asked Carter, who looked at Finch, saw how unsettled he was, and retrieved a pair from her purse. Shaw cuffed Root to the heater pipe on the wall behind the dining table. She did not resist, but did not cooperate, either.

"You'll need the information on those harddrives, and so does She."

"Who is 'she'?" Carter asked, turning to Finch on a hunch.

"It's not important," Finch said.

Glenanne was already leaning on the table again, head over the maps. "And what if she's telling the truth about the air monitoring system? The gas was our best option."

Finch sighed and sat down in front of his computer. "I'll look into it."

The flood of emails waiting for the cover identity under which he had tried to buy the servers was foreboding. He looked at Root. She was sitting with her back against the wall, tapping her fingers on the hardwood floor to music only she could hear. She was the one in cuffs now, yet, with the memory of his abduction more vivid than he would have liked to admit, a part of him was still afraid of her.

One of Finch's cellphones rang. Looking at the display, he saw that it was the lawyer of the identity under which he had bought the server farm, and went into the kitchen to answer.

Carter and Shaw sat down at the table. Glenanne joined them after carrying over the bag of hard drives and examining the contents. Carter looked her up and down, wondering what piece of the puzzle she was still missing that connected Finch's abductor to Glenanne.

"Seems like your penchant for getting into trouble lacks nothing behind John's."

"You have no idea. Thanks for helping out, again." Glenanne looked at Shaw, "you too."

Shaw nearly shrugged but stopped herself, and Carter forced a smile.

Finch appeared in the doorway to the kitchen and stood there frozen for a moment. Root smiled at him. "Told you," she said.

He shot an irritated look her way, then went out the front door and came back moments later with more computer equipment. The hard drives fit into his rack without problems but were, of course, encrypted. It took him a moment before he noticed that the ladies were all still staring at him.

"Something you wanna share?" Carter asked.

"No. But I think Ms. Groves does."

"Not quite yet, Harold."

"Well, while these drives decrypt, and while Ms. Groves decides whether she has any information to share, why don't Ms. Shaw and I take a drive around the neighbourhood. 'Recon', I believe you call it."

Shaw gave an indifferent nod, gathered a small arsenal of weapons, snatched the SUV keys from Finch and left the house, all without saying a word. Finch concluded that she approved of the idea. He looked around the room, gaze briefly lingering on each person there. No one objected - Glenanne was already lost in some calculations she had started regarding blasting in an enclosed space - so he packed his laptop into its bag, gathered his coat and went for the door. Carter took the laptop bag from him, overtly in an effort to assist the infirm man. When they were out the door, she asked, "Finch, what are we doing?"

"As I explained during the flight, we're rescuing Mr. Westen and Mr. Reese."

"Yeah, I got that. But it seems like you left out some details, again."

He gave her an impish sideways look.

"Look, I'm apparently game for storming some super-villain's lair together with a retired assassin, a suspected terrorist, a kidnapper and ... you, to rescue a burned spy and a vigilante, but I'm not doing it in the dark."

Finch thought he had been rather forthcoming with information during the flight, at least where Westen's and Glennanne's situation was concerned. Of course that was not what she was asking about now, but it was all he was willing to disclose.

"Mr. Reese is in very serious danger from a very cunning and ruthless man. Various parties have an interest in taking that man down, first and foremost Mr. Westen and his team. The parties have come together here to do just that. And it helps if you think of them as a single-minded weapons specialist, a tactical expert with extensive knowledge of explosives, and ... someone with unique access to a vast repository of information."

They had come to a stop half-way between the house and the van.

"And then who are we?"

"I'm head of the Circus, and you're adult supervision." His voice was dead-pan, but his face hinted at a smile. Carter suppressed half a chuckle.

"There I always thought of you more as Smiley," she dead-panned back, then turning more serious, "I'll make sure they don't blow anything up while you're gone."

"That would be very much appreciated, Officer."

"But when this is all over, I want some answers."

Finch nodded vaguely and began walking toward the SUV again.

.

.

Reese was unflustered when the needle went into his arm.

He had been taken to a different room. The walls here were lined in shotcrete, which smoothed out the jagged edges of the rock, and there were polished stainless steel tables and white, empty shelves along one side of it. He was sitting on a chair, hands still cuffed behind his back, and further immobilized by ropes.

There was no point in being scared. He had been here before, and he knew what to expect. In a life that once fit him like a well tailored - if somewhat itchy - suit, he had been trained for situations like these. All the ways this could go were sketched out in his head, and he had made his peace with all of them a long time ago. At least, that is how it used to be, when he had nothing to lose, and no one was coming to save him. Now he wore that old suit, but it had been washed too hot and though he pulled on those sleeves, he couldn't quite get the length he wanted. What would happen to Finch, if Fullerton found him? What about Carter, Fusco, Shaw? He remembered the look in Glenanne's eyes when she first told them about Fullerton. The man toyed with people; a heinous puppet master in the clandestine theatre of power.

Reese made a conscious effort to change the narrative in his head back to his training and experience, and to apply it to the immediate situation at hand. Experience had taught him that no matter how dire, a situation could always be made worse by someone not having his head in the game. He knew Finch was close; probably Carter too, if he knew her at all. They, and the rest of Westen's crew, had to be working on a rescue mission. Even if they were not, though, the best thing for him to do was work the problem and be as ready as he could be. He created a mental map of what he had seen of the mine while they walked him here, which was not much, considering he had been blindfolded. It gave him something useful to focus on though, and he regained his calm.

The same guard he had seen earlier was standing next to him, while a second man - short hair, same outfit as the other one but less muscle - injected him with the drug. He could not see the container the liquid came from, and no one bothered to inform him of what it was. He monitored his body for the effects of the drug, but it was hard, in his state of prolonged, hyper-vigilant immobility, to tell any drug related symptoms from irrelevant ones. Was his foot tingling because of the drug, or because he had been sitting awkwardly for a while? The mild pain near his lower ribs, when did that start? And the nausea - maybe from not having eaten since the night before. And then the overhead light was shaking. No, he realized after a moment, his head had fallen forward against his chest.

Fullerton's voice was now asking him questions about Root, of all people. Reese was calm. He knew what to do. He had practiced this.

 

 

**Chapter 5**

 

Copying data …

Decrypting …

Backup - complete.

Database code 5290 - access restored.

Updating probabilities …

.

.

"Got a good view and some pictures of the mine entrance from up on the local ski-hill. They have some serious radio communication equipment out there, but we set up some even more serious remote-control signal jammers. Locals seem to think it's some kind of government research facility," Shaw reported after they got back to the cottage and she realized Finch had no intention of informing the rest of the team about what they had learned, being too preoccupied with the fact that Root was sitting at the table, unshackled, spinning a pen between the fingers of her right hand.

Glenanne seemed happy enough with the arrangement, so Finch gave Carter an accusatory stare, but she shrugged at him. While Shaw was updating the team, Finch took the path around the rust-red sofa that kept him furthest away from the table and eased himself into the cushions. His position facing away from everyone in the room gave him a moment to collect himself and relax his increasingly painful neck without broadcasting his vulnerability. He was displeased when he felt the sofa jostle from Shaw sitting down on its backrest, but on glancing at her backside out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn she was placing herself between him and Root while assessing the unshackled-Root situation, though it might have been his imagination.

"So, how do you feel about being a radio-chemist for a day?" Carter asked Shaw.

"What does a radio-chemist even do?"

"Apparently, they are lacing water with radioisotopes to track its movement through the rock."

"Sounds unwise."

For the first time in probably ever, Finch agreed with something Shaw said.

"You'll be bringing the isotopes into the mine and deploying them wherever the geo-engineer asks you to. But that won't be all you're bringing, or deploying..."

"Seriously, you want me to handle radioactive crap?"

"It's not as bad as it sounds. Here. Instructions." Glenanne handed Shaw a stack of printed papers. "Your group will start by picking up the radioactive trail of surface water that was laced a few days ago. If all goes well, we won't get to the point where you have to actually do any contaminating yourself."

"And what happened to the _real_ radio-chemist?" Finch asked without turning.

"She couldn't make it," Root said over her shoulder at him.

"She's in the hospital with meningitis - I checked," Carter added. "Shaw will pretend to be the radio-chemist's assistant, who somehow never got the call ..."

"So what will you do while I contaminate the water supply?"

"The isotopes are short-lived, you're not technically contaminating anything - at least not for long," Glenanne said.

Carter could not help but grin a little when she answered Shaw's question. "And we, of course, will be deploying the nitrous oxide." She did not think she should be enjoying this quite as much as she was. During the moments her worry for Reese got lost among their planning, she appreciated the teamwork, and if she was totally honest with herself, a part of her looked forward to the impending action.

Shaw voiced a similar notion, though her tone of voice did not offer any indication as to the sincerity of her words. "Radioactive isotopes and laughing gas. Sounds like a fun day." Irrespective of her true feelings on the matter, she sat down on the floor in front of the fireplace, the Handbook of Radioisotope Tracing and a nuclear safety manual spread out in front of her, and started cramming. Finch followed her with his gaze, suddenly realizing they were quite serious about this.

"I trust you've done a job hazard analysis for this task," he said, turning his torso to face the ladies at the table.

Shaw stifled a dry chuckle. Glenanne and Carter looked at each other, somewhat unsure about whether or not Finch was joking.

"Never mind," he said. "I do trust, however, that this is part of a bigger plan."

"Apparently, there have been persistent problems with water flooding parts of the mine drifts, so they hired some experts to come in later today to have a look. Perfect opportunity to do some recon _inside_ the operation," Glenanne said.

"And this is for you." Carter walked over to the sofa and handed Finch a stack of papers - Fundamentals of Geo-Engineering. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"They know the engineer is a guy, so none of us can do it."

"And do I want to know what happened to the real engineer?"

"He got booked on a wrong flight," Root said.

"I see."

"Super fancy secret lair, and he has a plumbing problem," Shaw said into her textbook.

Finch pushed himself off the sofa and shuffled past Carter to the table. "It's always the mundane things that get you," he said in response to Shaw.

Root's chair was unavoidable on his way to the end of the table where the computer was, and he hesitated for a moment before forcing himself to pass by her. The two screens provided a perceived safety shield, separating him from Root, and he dropped his stack of study material next to the keyboard, then he noticed that someone had rearranged the windows - they had let Root use his computer. He leaned sideways just a bit and gave her a dirty look across the table, which was met by an innocent smile on her side. No one else noticed the brief exchange. Carter had sat down again across from Root and next to Glenanne, and they were already immersed in the details of the mission flow-chart.

Finch quickly arranged the windows the way he liked them again then checked his emails. He noted that, as expected, the disks were not decrypted yet. What he had not expected was that the restrictions he had set up had been circumvented, making the data available on the network, and earning Root another dirty look.

His gaze caught the rest of the room, and his displeasure about the loss of control regarding the data on the hard drives was replaced with cautious contentment. This group of haphazardly assembled strangers had, quite magically it seemed, come together into a well-ordered tactical unit, and as a unit were doing the often tedious work of planning, studying and preparing, without which anything they set out to do would be destined to fail. Any one of them, alone, may have been prone to taking rash, desperate actions, and Finch had feared that between all of them, he would have been unable to enforce prudent behaviour. The opposite happened. Because they had the skills and strengths of each other to lean on, they could all focus on doing their part right.

The screen in front of him flickered, bringing his focus back to the device. He was about to reach for the VGA connector when a map appeared. It showed detailed drawings of the layout of the mine, identifying all air and water handling systems. He tilted his torso to look past the screen at Root again. She grinned like the Cheshire Cat. Finch printed the map and handed it over to Glenanne and Carter.

"I believe this might help."

"Where did these come from?" Carter asked.

He had prepared a number of answers to that question, but now none of them seemed right. Root spoke before he could.

"You appeased the Higher Power, and She smiled on you."

Finch ignored her, but used the distraction to avoid giving an answer himself.

Glenanne took the printouts and started comparing them with the historic maps they had been working off of. She was single-mindedly determined to put this rescue mission in motion, and her discard of peripheral details, such as the origin of intel, served Finch just right.

"Wow, the shaft goes a lot deeper than we thought. And this is one top-of-the line air monitoring system."

Carter looked at the map, and the areas Glenanne was pointing out, but her mind lingered on Root's words and her interaction with Finch. She suspected them a glimpse onto the Big Secret; the carefully tended informational void that was always around when she talked to Finch or Reese. Her probing stare was discouraged by Finch sitting back down, hiding behind his screens, which felt to Carter a physical manifestation of the invisible brick wall she ran into every time she conversationally moved in the direction of the void. She sighed gently, resigned to the void remaining unfilled, at least for now, and focussed on the map.

.

.

Axe sighed and tapped his foot periodically on the porch in front of Mrs. Westen's house. He looked up and down the street every few seconds, and readied his hand to pull out the firearm in his waistband every time a pedestrian in sight tripped his instincts. The front door was ajar and extruded a thin waft of cigarette smoke.

Axe stuck his head in the door, to see Mrs. Westen pushing at the sleeve of a raincoat. The rest of the coat was already wedged in her overstuffed suitcase.

"I really don't think you'll be needing that."

"Yeah? How do you know?"

"It's only for a couple of days."

"Well, it might rain."

"No it won't."

"Again, how can you be so sure?"

"We _really_ should get going."

"You said Michael's business with the Organization was done, _over_. And now he's been kidnapped and shouldn't you be up there helping Fi, rather than here, pestering me?"

"Hey, that's what we all thought, and we were wrong, it happens. And I _am_ helping Michael, and Fi, by keeping you safe, and if you want to help them, too, you'll leave with me now."

"Well I can take care of myself."

"What are you going to do when men show up here with semi-automatics? Offer them a cigarette and cookies? Fullerton lost the leverage he had on Michael, he'll come to clean up, or get new leverage. Either way, you've got a big shiny bullseye on your forehead."

Mrs. Westen yanked the zipper shut until it got jammed into the raincoat sleeve still hanging out. Axe stepped inside and grabbed the suitcase off the sofa before she could change her mind.

"I just need—"

He gave her an exasperated look.

"Fine, I'll go."

They walked to the beige sedan Axe had 'borrowed' and Axe pushed Mrs. Westen's bag into the back seat, while she sat in the passenger seat and lit another cigarette.

Axe spotted the metallic reflection of something a passerby on the other side of the street was carrying. He ran around the car and started driving without having closed the car door first. A bullet hit the trunk before they were out of range of the shooter.

With the gunman well behind them, Axe glanced at Mrs. Westen, who was still puffing her cigarette and acted like the events of the past few minutes were all part of an ordinary day. He sighed when he realized the truth in that.

They drove out to a campsite seemingly at the edge of civilization. It was mostly deserted at this time of year, and the large RV was nestled among tall trees.

"You expect me to stay _here_?"

"I was under the impression you liked camping."

"Michael tell you that? I hate it, it was him and his brother who _liked_ it."

"It's only for a couple of days, at most. Besides, look at that beauty, there's a washroom and everything."

A smiling Nate opened the RV door and waved at them, so Mrs. Westen put on a happy face and left the car to greet him.

.

.

The interrogation session was necessarily cut short, so it was no surprise to Fullerton that it did not yield the information he was after. The prisoners needed to be stowed away safely before the technicians and engineers came to figure out how to stop the water from accumulating in his most ambitious project yet.

He had Reese taken back to the stope with Westen, had them both gagged for good measure, and, just to be sure, had two big wire shelving units set in front of them, stacked with empty cardboard boxes. No sooner was the door locked did he receive word that the technicians were getting on the cage. He hurried down the drift to the science operations area, exchanged a few friendly words with the operations manager, and entered the provisionally functional control room, where he could have been mistaken for just another member of the staff.

It was a good time to check on his operative in Miami. All going well, he would have Westen's mom and brother as new leverage, giving him a more broken, more dangerous, but still useful tool in Westen. And maybe he had an even better, new and shiny tool sitting in that room as well. One that already had a connection with Root. He just had to find out the details - about her, about Reese, and about the surveillance network - to gain the necessary leverage. The re-building of his operation - bigger, better, stronger - depended on it.

.

.

Shaw clasped the handle of the lead-lined box with the big yellow and black radiation warning label stuck on it just a bit more tightly when the rattling contraption her and her companions found themselves in took them the 1200 ft or so into the ground. Smuggling in a half dozen small charges had been easy - no one wants to dig around in a container with a radiation warning label on it. The gas masks were effectively hidden among the rucksack of safety gear she carried, too.

They were wearing reflective vests, hard-hats and steel-toed yellow rubber boots. Shaw had the urge to break out laughing every time she looked at Finch, who was also wearing jeans and a red, checkered flannel shirt, yet still managed to look prim and proper. She could not see him at the moment, which was just as well, since there was no light in the cage and none of her companions nor the cage tender had turned on their cap lamps, so they descended in darkness that was rhythmically interrupted by the dim passing lights installed in regular intervals down the shaft wall.

All five of them finally turned their cap lamps on when they stepped off the wobbly cage into the drift, though the fluorescent overhead lights provided enough light to see just fine. She was not sure how dosed up Finch was on pain medication, but he had managed the cage ride and the uneven ground in the drift barely revealing his limp. He now studied the walls and ceiling of the drift, with the bundles of exposed air conduits, water pipes and cables that rang along it, like he knew what he was looking at. Todd Steinmetz, a young and enthusiastic technician assigned to help with their measurements, was already unpacking a handheld radiation detector. They could not avoid bringing him, since he was local to the area and there had been no time to disappear him.

Several metres ahead of them, the drift was sealed off by a cement wall with two tall fire doors that doubled as security doors in it. Two men of stoic expression but not in uniform guarded the open doors that a group of chatty and decidedly not military-looking men were spilling out of on their way to retrieve several boxes that had been sent down the cage along with the technicians. They were chatting and gesturing and paying no mind to the guards or the new arrivals. Next up coming through the doors was a short dark-haired man in his 40s, wearing the same reflective west and hard hat as them but otherwise casual dress.

"You must be Dr. Wendel! I'm so glad you could make it on short notice. I'm Dr. Harb, the operations manager here, we spoke on the phone." Harb said to Finch, who felt odd about not being called by a bird name. They shock hands.

"We assembled a team as quickly as possible; I'm given to understand that the water problem down here has become quite serious. Unfortunately we are a bit blurry on the details of the facility you have here." Finch said to Dr. Harb.

"Yes, as you can probably imagine, this is unavoidable. You all signed the non-disclosure agreements, but that does not mean I can be open about all the details. All you need to know is that we do research for the government, and we have sensitive equipment down here that is currently sitting in an inch of water. I have a map of the relevant systems here. The flooded parts are marked in red." Harb handed him the same map they had been working off of, though this version had hand-written notes all over it. Shaw looked at the map over Finch's shoulder, while Steinmetz stood around grinning. Shaw could tell the young man was chomping at the bit to start his work, and she could only put up with his chipper conduct by periodically thinking up novel ways of rendering him unconscious.

"We will have to perform a thorough inspection of the problem areas."

"Certainly. Where do you want to start?"

Finch made a show of studying the map. He had memorized the locations they would need access to, and hoped he could talk their guide into granting their requests. "Let's start right here." He pointed at a spot on the map representing a stope at the side of a smaller drift, identified on the map as "Rung-One" that was forking off to the left from the one they were in, just on the other side of the wall. Rung-One had several such short stopes protruding to the left and right of it like appendages. It then eventually met up with another wide drift, "B-Drift" according to the map, running parallel to the one they were in, which was "A-Drift". Two other drifts - "Rung-Two" and "Rung-Three" - connected A-Drift and B-Drift, making the floor-plan look like a somewhat crooked ladder.

"That's not where the water problem is."

"In order to solve the water problem permanently, we have to consider the mine as a complete organism. Just because there currently is no water running into that area doesn't mean the area is irrelevant for water flow. This map also seems to indicate that several of the pump and air handling systems are located in these stopes," he pointed at the other stopes, "we should certainly inspect those."

"I'll lead the way." Dr. Harb said after a moment of consideration. He walked them through the tall doors and into Rung-One.

Rung-One had a clay floor and only the occasional overhead light, and Shaw was now glad for their cap-lamps. They walked past a cement mixer and piles of construction materials. The hum of the air handling unit grew louder as they approached the open stope that held the equipment. Right above them was the secondary ventilation shaft, covered with a steel and cement lid. Disabling the secondary fan, filter and monitoring system was their first order of business.

Finch involved Dr. Harb in a conversation, drawing his attention to the opposite wall. Shaw and Steinmetz entered the short stope and the young technician started to take samples of the moisture near the walls. Shaw retrieved a small charge from her bag and walked around the air-handling unit like she knew what she was doing. And she kind of did; her and Glenanne had looked at images of the filter and air quality monitoring system and she knew exactly where to put that charge.

The next stope on the map, several meters further down, was blocked by a brick wall. Harb walked right past it, all the while fidgeting with the loose reflector stripe on his west. Finch and Shaw looked at each other.

"We need to take samples in here as well." Finch said to Harb.

"Sorry, that area is off limits right now."

Finch conceded, at least for the moment. They passed three empty stopes, and reached the one that held a sump pump draining into a higher level through a pipe driven up through the rock. Finch made a show, again, of inspecting the system. Steinmetz, with his unbridled enthusiasm, took samples of the water, and Shaw in an unobserved moment placed a charge in the spot on the pump determined by Glenanne.

They took a right turn into B-Drift. Finch figured that the renovations had not reached this area yet - the wire mesh clinging to the sides of the tunnel was in an advanced state of decay, and small pieces of fallen rock littered the rutted clay floor. The few overhead lights were yellowed and covered in dust. They walked past the closed doors into Rung-Two. Finally at the end of the drift, another right turn led up to the wall and fire doors that marked the entrance into Rung-Three. Shaw placed a radio repeater by a piece of protruding rock behind the wall while pretending to inspect a fault line. Rung-Three had bright lights, a poured cement floor, and shotcrete lined walls painted white. It was wide enough that rooms were built along the left side, so they walked along a corridor formed by a brick wall to their left, and smoothed rock wall to their right. Some of the doors had windows which revealed mostly empty rooms.

"So, what kind of research do you do?" Shaw asked.

"Again, like I said, I cannot divulge that information."

The primary air handling unit was located at the intersection between Rung-three and A-Drift, underneath the main air shaft which hey had failed to breach the previous night. Shaw looked at the unit with special interest. Dr. Harb followed her around. She lifted her source box with the yellow hazard symbol up in his face without looking at him.

"No loitering near the source canisters."

"They're properly shielded, I hope."

She turned and glared at him without saying a word until he backed off.

"Delightful person. You work with her a lot?" he asked Finch.

"On occasion. She has her very own way of doing things."

Shaw glared at them once more before walking around to the other side of the unit. It was a different model than what had been indicated on the map. She nevertheless placed small charges that in her best estimate would disable the air monitor and filtration system when detonated, but leave the fan intact.

The back end of A-Drift was cavernous enough to be subdivided both vertically, having a second level mezzanine similar to that in Westen's loft, and horizontally, with more smaller rooms formed by additional brick walls. Some of the rooms they could look into here were stuffed with computers and communication equipment. The area seemed provisional at best, and a dozen or so people were scurrying around installing cables, pipes, and other infra-structure, and generally paying no mind to the motionless guards.

They had to step over sausage shaped spill-control socks laid out across the floor, stopping water about a centimetre deep that seemed to be spilling out of one room. Dr. Harb opened the door for them. Finch stopped at the threshold, surveying the large server room. The server racks were propped up on wooden skids and there was an inch of water behind the threshold. The south wall was slick with algae.

"It appears the source of the problem is this wall."

"You think?"

"We may have to end up grouting the fissure."

"We were really hoping to avoid that."

"We'll see what we can do, then."

Finch, Shaw and Steinmetz entered the room. The latter got right down to business again, taking water samples and measurements, while Finch and Shaw - glad now to have an unwitting accomplice to keep up their cover - did their best to look competent. In an unobserved moment, Finch pushed flash drives into some of the ports on the server racks, which automatically downloaded all the data they could get.

Their next stop was Rung-Two, which housed a refuge station and washrooms. Finch showed conversational skills Shaw did not think he had, convincing Dr. Harb to let them look around. Eventually they circled back to the shaft station and by means of exclusion, determined that Reese and Westen must have been held in the locked stope off Rung-One; it was the only area they had not been allowed to see.

The cage was already waiting to take them back to surface.

.

.

Glenanne, Root and Carter were on their fourth and final trip from the SUV - until recently loaded up with gas cylinders - to the primary air shaft. They entered the property through the same opening in the fence that Glenanne, Westen and Reese had made the night before, two of them carrying the gas cylinder and one carrying the firearms.

The communal trip to the outdoor store earlier had supplied them with green waterproof boots and brown raincoats - make-shift camouflage uniforms of sorts which also protected them from the misty wind and marshy ground. The trees and underbrush still offered convenient cover despite the daylight hour, and they were now certain that there were no cameras or other security measures on the structure protecting the air shaft. They had dug up the motor for the metal bars and cut the power on their first trip.

"Fi."

"Yeah?"

"You have a man back in Miami, Sam Axe."

"We do."

"There is a courier arriving there very soon, with a box you don't want the authorities to get. We'll need Sam to stop him. Call him please."

Glenanne stopped. "Sure. Where is this coming from now?"

Root walked on past her then stopped and set down the gas cylinder she was carrying. "Call him, and I'll give him the details."

Glenanne sat her cylinder down as well and called Axe, explaining the situation, then handed the phone to Root, who told him what the courier looked like and where he was arriving.

Carter backtracked and pushed away the branches of some underbrush with the barrel of the rifle. "What's the hold-up?"

"Just taking care of Fi's legal situation for a moment."

Carter raised an eyebrow.

"There's time for that later. They'll be up soon."

"Actually, there wasn't, but it's all taken care of now."

"'She' told you that, right?"

Root grinned and picked up her cylinder again. "She tells me what I need to know." With that she walked off.

Carter turned toward Glenanne, who shrugged and picked up her cylinder as well.

"You work with them a lot. Have been for a while. You have no clue who is providing them with their information?"

"Beats me."

They walked a few metres behind Root.

"What I've seen, their intel has always been accurate and pertinent; both Finch's and Root's."

"Eerily so."

"I don't know many cops who would help people like Reese and Finch."

Carter laughed.

"I bet you don't. I spent six months trying to arrest them."

"What changed?"

"Reese nearly got killed last time I tried. Then, they showed me what they really do. I can't say I approve of their methods, but the city is better off with them there, and they are better off with me helping them."

Glenanne nodded. "It's funny - the way you find likeminded people in the most unexpected places sometimes."

They caught up with Root at the fence. Carter pulled the gap open while the other two ducked through, then followed them. With all the materials now on site, they erected a small tent over the air shaft and connected the gas cylinders, then made their way to the collar house, going as far as possible without being seen, and waited for Finch's signal.

Finch, Shaw and Steinmetz stepped off the cage into the collar house and Finch excused himself to go to the bathroom. The message on his cellphone indicated the gas was ready to go, and he sent a confirmation message back. He set up his laptop next to the sink and in short order interrupted radio communication from and to the mine, detonated the charges Shaw had placed, and opened the electric valve feeding gas into the as of now only available air shaft. With the secondary air handler as well as the monitors and filters out of commission, the underground ventilation system had no choice but to distribute the gas throughout the mine.

Carter pointed the rocket launcher at an unused shed next to the collar house and Glenanne smiled with satisfaction when the structure burst into pieces. A truck at the side of the yard was her next target. The guards by the gate and around the building pooled around the sites of the explosions, where Glenanne and Root took them down with a few clean shots. Once the gunfire stopped, the three of them met up at the collar house entrance and gave silent nods to each other. So far, all was going according to plan. Carter stayed by the door to look out for any more guards while Glenanne and Root went inside.

Shaw had corralled the workers and guards inside into a utility room and was locking the door when her team members entered the building. She had cuffed the hoist operator to a railing by the cage.

Finch was in the control room opposite the cage entrance, connecting his laptop to their system.

"Root was right, we'll need him," he said. "I can't control the cage with the computer."

Carter gave the yard another visual once-over and entered the building to take the hoist man to the hoist room. She convinced him to lower the cage with Glenanne, Shaw and Root on it.

The ride was only a couple of minutes, and when they stepped off the cage, gas masks on snuggly and weapons drawn, the guards were already well on their way to being incapacitated, and some shots to their kneecaps did the rest.

The three of them ducked against the walls in response to a succession of loud bangs that sounded like cannons were being shot through the rock. The accompanying vibration shook their bodies. On the surface, Finch held on to a wall.

"What the hell was that?" Shaw asked when the noise and vibration stopped.

"Rockburst," Carter said into her headset, that being what the hoist man called it.

An alarm siren started blaring underground, but no one was going for the exit. The personnel, other than the guards, had already assembled, as per procedure, in the refuge station. All the fire doors closed automatically.

"A smoke alarm just tripped," Finch explained. "I'm not sure it is safe for you to proceed."

Glenanne had already relieved one of the two guards of his keycard, but the doors into A-Drift did not obey the card.

"You blow stuff up, there's going to be smoke, Finch, now open the doors," Shaw said into the headset inside her gas mask.

Finch sighed. "I'm in their system and working on it."

 

**Chapter 6**

 

Explosions. Westen perked up. He rose, discarding the handcuffs and gag, and took the couple of steps to reach Reese, fumbling in the dark to find the other man's shoulders, arms, then the handcuffs.

"Hey, you awake?"

"Hmm?" Reese startled and jerked his arms against the cuffs and chains in defence.

"Sounds like the cavalry has arrived. I've got a piece of wire." Westen waited a moment for Reese to come to, then felt him make an effort to turn his back away from the wall. He helped out with a push until he could reach the lock on the cuffs. Westen's wrists were chafed and bloody from struggling against his own cuffs in the search for something sharp, or long and thin, and he grunted a few times when they made contact with the rock.

"Out of practice?" Reese slurred after a minute.

"The wire keeps breaking off. It's rusty, found it buried in the clay. How do you feel?"

"Been worse. Do you smell nitrous oxide?"

Westen suppressed the urge to work faster - it would just cause him to break the piece of wire even more.

"You should start working on the door, while you still can."

"I can do both."

.

.

Fullerton heard the explosions and immediately checked on the location of the reinforcements he had called in. They were some anti-technology clowns who thought that he was on their side, but they were better than nothing. His communication channels were down. The sick feeling that rose in the pit of his stomach was not entirely new to him, but he had not experienced it in a long time. He moved against the current of workers drawn toward the refuge station. In the turmoil, he only noticed the gas after taking a wrong turn into a science lab. Turning around, he regretted setting up a mock science lab that did not require gas masks.

An oscilloscope and a bag of ridiculously expensive cables crashed to the floor when the walls and ground started shaking. Fullerton thought it was funny - damn gas. Once past the crowd of workers, he sprinted down Rung-One to the holding cell.

The door unlocked too easily, and Fullerton stumbled against the shelving unit to the right. Firearm raised, he stepped past the shelf to deal with Westen and nearly shot the wall to which the pesky spy was no longer chained.

No one had ever accused him of underestimating people. Westen did not have any resources in the area to pull this off, so he gave himself a pass for having underestimated Reese, seeing as he knew very little about the man. Those were his thoughts when he stumbled back out into the drift.

Glenanne, Root, and Shaw had made it just past the secondary air shaft when Fullerton came into sight. All three of them aimed their firearms at him. Before he could raise his firearm in turn, Root pulled the trigger, landing a clean shot just above his left eye. Glenanne's arm dropped, and she looked from the body on the floor back to Root, then back to the body. Root turned around and jogged back toward A-Drift.

"What was that? Did I just hear a shot?"

"Root shot Fullerton," Shaw answered Finch. "Lets go," she then said to Glenanne, moving on past the man on the floor into the holding-cell stope. When she came back out a moment later, Glenanne still stood frozen by the body of the man who had been playing them for months.

"The guys aren't here. They probably used the turmoil to escape." Shaw looked at Glenanne and waited. "We should find them."

Glenanne finally nodded and they power-walked down the drift, checking each stope, nook and cranny, firearm-barrels first. Finch unlocked the fire-doors into Rung-Three for them, and white smoke immediately swirled out. Fire sprinklers were aiding and abetting the water problem. There were no guards anywhere along the hallway.

"Check the rooms, I think I know what may be causing the smoke," Glenanne said and ran on ahead.

"What is your situation, Ms. Shaw, Ms. Glenanne?"

"We've got a lot of smoke, and we're still trying to locate Westen and Reese," Shaw answered while searching another room.

"Everyone, we've got a zirconium fire, and the sprinklers aren't helping. There is no way we can put this out, we have to evacuate everyone," came Glenanne's voice over the headsets.

"Alright, I'm alerting mine rescue and the fire department."

"On the bright side, I've got Reese and Westen."

Shaw entered the room and handed a headset and gas mask to each coughing man sitting on the floor. "When people are coming to rescue you, you should have the curtesy to stay put," she said.

Reese looked up at her. "You should have stayed away."

On surface, both Finch and Carter sighed in relief on hearing Reese's voice.

"Yeah, we probably should have. But in case you haven't noticed, I'm working for Finch now, so the rules are different. Come on now, gotta hurry."

Shaw pulled Reese to his feet. Westen managed the feat with some help from the wall.

"Well, we couldn't have known you would set the place on fire." Not the kind of smouldering trail Reese had had in mind when he had pondered Glenanne's state-of-mind in the library, but close enough.

Glenanne appeared in the room and grabbed Westen's arm, leading him out after Shaw and Reese.

"Fi, Fullerton sent out the evidence he had against you," Westen said while forcing filtered air into his smoke-filled lungs through the mask.

"We know. Sam is intercepting the package."

The four of them proceeded down the corridor along the succession of rooms and turned into A-Drift. Root came down from the mezzanine level to meet them.

"We better hurry, our incursion has attracted some attention."

"We're not leaving until I have Fullerton," Westen said.

Root glanced at him. "He's been taken care of."

Westen turned to look at Glenanne, who was still holding him by the arm.

"Fullerton's dead, Michael, and this place, whatever it is, is going to burn and flood."

"Take him, I'll get the staff to the cage," Shaw said, pushing Reese's arm toward Root.

"Oh they're fine in the refuge station. They'll be good there until mine rescue arrives, while on the other hand, both Fullerton's reinforcements and some friends of yours from the CIA are nearly at the gate, so we should run."

Finch looked up from his computer and switched off his microphone.

"Which branch in the flowchart is 'more hostile men, and CIA, arriving'?" he asked Carter.

"Depends, how close are they, and can we hold them off?"

Finch now had the satellite image of the immediate area up.

"I can't tell who's who. There are five black SUVs, two vans, a few cars, and three fire trucks on their way here. And that's just what I can see outside the blacked-out area."

"I think we're on the 'hide our tracks and get the hell out' branch, then."

"Five to beam up, Scotty," Shaw spoke into her headset. Root pulled down the rolling gate to close the cage.

Carter unlocked the hoist room and told the hoistman to bring the cage to surface.

"Not happening, Lady."

Carter fixed him with her stare.

"Look, you can stare at me and wave your gun all you want, but this box is going nowhere." He flicked a switch, eliciting a groaning noise from the mechanism behind him.

"Fix it."

"In case you haven't noticed, we've had explosions, a rockburst, and now there's a fire down there. The hoisting system is probably damaged, and even if it isn't, there are at least four safety systems currently preventing this baby from going anywhere."

Carter looked the man up and down and determined he was telling the truth.

"We can't bring the cage up; repeat, the cage is not coming up," she said into her headset.

"Well, the branch of the flowchart where we go hide among the staff is off - they are sealed in at the refuge station," Shaw said.

"We have people down there, what should they do?" Carter asked the hoistman.

"Standard procedure, go to the refuge station, seal the door."

"What if that's not possible?"

"Grab a bucket of clay from the cabinet beside the shaft station, and seal yourself in at the nearest convenient spot, try to get some compressed air going."

"You guys hear that?"

Root pushed the cage gate back up.

"On it," Shaw said.

Carter slammed the door to the hoist room closed and walked back to the control room.

Finch turned to face her. "You should go, before they arrive."

"Okay, so should you."

"I can stay here and keep my cover up."

"Finch, go, now. Carter," Reese coughed hard and just so rasped out, "make him go with you."

"You may have to subdue him first," Shaw said through the headset to Carter, while pulling a bucket of clay out of the cabinet.

Root appeared from the other side of the doors with a handcart. "I can give you some hints, if need be ..."

Finch froze at the memories, and Carter used the opportunity to gather up his laptop. He did not resist when she ushered him outside and onto a four-wheeler. They rode out to the air shaft and loaded up the gas bottles and tent, then hid the materials in the underbrush by the fence, before taking what was becoming a trail to the SUV.

Finch was breathing hard by the time he lowered himself into the passenger seat. Carter gave him a sympathetic look and started the car. She wondered if this was how Glenanne had felt half a day earlier.

Finch allowed himself a mere moment of rest before he opened up his laptop to turn off the signal jammers and log into the emergency response computer system.

They parked on a small side street just within range of the radios.

.

Shaw and Root searched the nearest offices and labs. The fire had not reached there yet, and the gas masks offered some protection from the smoke. They liberated the water canisters from several fountains and picked up some chocolate bars, flashlights, first aid kit and plumbing tools. The handcart was heavy now and they struggled to pull it across the clay floor of Rung-One. At the stope-turned-cell, Glenanne was standing on Westen's shoulders shoving wet cardboard into the air duct above the door, handed to her by Reese. The acrobatic act was overseen by Fullerton's body, which had been pulled out of the way against the opposite side of the drift wall.

The compressed air line had a blind 'T' going toward the cell, but not into it. Shaw and Root, once the cart was inside, pushed one of the shelving units into the drift and stood on it while removing the blank and connecting the air line to a newly created hole at the side of the air duct, closest to the wall into the cell, and fed a plastic hose through the wet-cardboard plug Glenanne, Westen and Reese were making, into the cell. Then they turned the valve, flooding the room with fresh air.

They sealed the door with clay from the bucket and pulled their masks off.

Reese sat down in his spot, pushing aside the chain that was still dangling there.

"You could have waited to blow the place up until we were out," he said.

"Thing's have not exactly been going according to plan," Shaw said, throwing a chocolate bar at his chest. She sat down next to Reese. The remaining members of the group lined up after her along the wall.

"You look like a racoon," Shaw said to Reese while shining her cap lamp at his face.

He looked up at her, but was too exhausted and drugged to wonder what she was talking about, let alone realize that she was referring to the red lines where the mask had sealed against his pale face. She snatched up his wrist and felt his pulse.

"What are you doing?"

"You've been drugged."

She took the cap lamp off her helmet and shone it into his eyes.

"And gassed, and smoked out. It's all in a day's work."

"Hmm. Eat this." She pointed at the chocolate bar.

"What if I'm not hungry?"

"Fine. Don't eat it."

She turned and pointed the lamp at Westen, who was sitting to the other side of her.

"Let me see that," she said as she grabbed for first his left then his right wrist and held them up for inspection. Shaw retrieved antiseptic wipes and bandages from the first aid kit and bandaged Westen's wrists while he was marvelling at how the heartless efficiency he had witnessed so often as a tool for harm was used for the opposite purpose.

Shaw's light wandered on to Glenanne who proclaimed that she was fine, and then landed on Root, who cocked her head and forced and annoyed smile.

"We should turn the lamps off," Glenanne said. "Conserve battery power, we may be here a while."

And so the room was dark and quiet again, save for the hissing of the compressed air flow. Neither Reese nor Westen could be faulted for feeling like the last hour had gotten them nowhere.

.

.

The time sensitive nature of the emergency underground had only a moderate effect on the speed with which the factions on surface sorted out what to do, which was in part because a couple of men from some obscure government agency claimed jurisdiction but did not provide much in way of explanation. The reinforcements Fullerton had called in were taken into custody by the CIA, just in time before the mine rescue workers and fire trucks arrived. Technicians from said institutions brought the cage back to life. It was finally agreed that mine rescue would take a couple of CIA agents down with them, and agent Pearce was waiting ready at the shaft collar, together with several ambulances that had just arrived. One of the men from the mystery agency remained with her while the other one was on his cell phone, pulling strings.

.

Carter was in an EMT uniform, dressing a mine rescue worker's arm wound, when she finally spotted Reese step off the cage. He was coughing and limping and held up by Shaw. She tried not to look too concerned and quickly finished the dressing. Glenanne and Westen stepped off the cage and were immediately picked out by Pearce and her agents. Another set of agents checked Reese's credentials, which identified him as Dr. Wendel - geochemist. Shaw was still the radio-chemistry assistant. They let Carter take them to an ambulance. Reese stopped limping, coughing and holding his stomach as soon as the ambulance doors were closed.

"Where is Root?" Finch asked from the driver's seat.

"I lost sight of her in the drift, on the way to the cage."

"Don't worry about me, boys. You'll hear from me in good time," came her voice through the headsets.

Finch sighed.

"We should go, before someone figures out I'm not an EMT and Reese is not an injured geo-chemist."

"We'll get her another time," Reese said.

Finch started the ambulance and drove them to his new cottage.

.

Glenanne and Westen were immediately handcuffed, and taken to separate vans. Despite his insistence, no one told Westen where they were taking Glenanne. He ended up in the back room of some sort of decrepit mill by the lake a couple miles from the mine.

"What was that?" Pearce slammed a file folder on the table in front of him. He did not answer, so she pressed on. "When we took you back, I thought we had some kind of understanding, maybe some mutual trust. And then you go off and do … this, whatever this was. And I'm not even going to start right now on the business with Ms. Glenanne and the consulate bombing, or the virus you uploaded on our network!"

She finally sat down at the table across from him, and he relented from studying the wood grain to look up at her. 'This explains the cuffs, at least,' he thought.

"What? You didn't think we'd find out about that?"

"Fi did not set the bomb that killed the security guards."

"And you did not upload that virus, right?" He went back to studying the wood grain. "We've got video, Michael."

"The underground compound was being built by Anson Fullerton. He's the man I told you about - the last remaining member of the Organization, and he was trying to re-build his empire. He set the bomb, and he's been blackmailing me to work for him or he would implicate Fiona."

"You'll forgive me for being skeptical."

"Look, just check him out."

"Hmm, fine. Where is he?"

"He's dead."

"That's convenient."

"It's over now. This was the last of the Organization."

"I've heard _that_ before."

"This time, it's true."

"So, you found out about his compound, and figured 'why tell my old friends at the CIA?, I'll just go blow it up, problem solved'"?

"More or less."

Pearce sighed. "You're still lying to me."

A minion knocked on the door and beckoned her outside. She re-entered again 15 minutes later.

"You abused your clearance to infect the CIA computer system, and you undermined an official investigation by withholding the intel you had gathered on Mr. Fullerton, and infiltrated his compound without authorization. You admit that much?"

"I had no choice."

"Someone was holding a gun to your head?"

"Not to _my_ head."

Pearce was called out of the room again. Soon, Westen heard heated voices outside the door, though he could not make out the words. It was quiet for a while, then the door opened again. He recognized the man on the other side and his muscles tensed.

"Sorry about this," the other agent said without sincerity as he raised his firearm. Westen closed his eyes. There was a shot. Westen breathed deeply and wondered why he was still able to do so. He opened his eyes again and saw the other agent on the ground, holding a bleeding knee, while Shaw took a wide step over his limbs and kicked his weapon across the floor. She stopped behind Westen, removed the cuffs, and urged him to follow her.

"Thanks," he said to the back of her head, while picking up the other agent's weapon and then stepping over him to follow Shaw.

Westen carefully moved past the disused machinery of the mill, looking for other agents. Shaw, already at the exit door, said, "there is no one else here."

"Where's Fiona?"

"On a plane straight to Allarod Federal Penitentiary."

Shaw started the SUV, and Westen, after a moment's hesitation, got in the passenger seat.

.

Shaw waved at Carter who was sitting on the porch in the dark, watching the yard with the night vision goggles and her Colt. Finch opened the door.

"Ah, Mr. Westen, I'm glad to see Ms. Shaw was not too late."

"How did you know?"

Finch looked to Shaw then back to Westen.

"That's what I'd like to know, too. Maybe you'll have better luck getting him to tell you than I've had, but I doubt it," Carter said.

"Why don't you come inside. You must be tired. There's a bedroom all yours."

Finch closed the door after Shaw and Westen.

"I want answers. Now."

Finch picked up a piece of paper from the printer tray and handed it to Westen.

"I intercepted this."

"This can't be right."

"The CIA seem to think you are compromised, and too much trouble to keep alive. You'll be safe here for now."

"No, you don't understand. This was issued by Tom Card. He wouldn't — I have to talk to him."

"It has been my experience that yes, someone like him most certainly would."

"You don't know him."

"I know the type."

"Explain to me again why I should trust you? For all I know, you orchestrated all this to make me work for you, so —"

Shaw pushed an injector against his arm, and he promptly wobbled to the floor.

"Ms. Shaw!"

"He'll see things more clearly in the morning."

.

.

Bagels, donuts and yoghurt had everyone in the cottage sitting at the dining table before sunrise, some more grumpily than others. Westen's attempt to grab a small arm and take off immediately after he woke up was thwarted by Shaw, who had been outside on the porch keeping watch at the time.

"I have two jets here. Ms. Shaw, Officer Carter and I can go back to New York, while you and Mr. Reese fly to Florida so you can talk to your Agent Pearce or Card, they are both back there, or will be soon."

"Not to seem ungrateful, but this is no longer your business."

"Very well. Should you change your mind, you know how to reach us. You are still welcome to take my jet."

Westen reluctantly agreed to fly to Miami curtesy of Finch's private aircraft, while everyone else left for New York.

.

Carter boarded the small aircraft and stowed her overnight bag with the other luggage in the back. Reese's weapons were already stowed away, and Shaw pushed the last bag of computer equipment through the door. Finch stepped out of the cockpit and announced that they were ready for takeoff, then sat down in the front row. Carter walked to the front and took the seat next to his. She waited until they were at altitude to begin the conversation.

"Always a fun time, taking a trip with you folks, breaking some laws."

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself."

"You're not going to tell me what this was all about, are you?"

Finch sighed.

"Someone got killed."

"Yes, that's very regrettable. I repeatedly advised against allowing Ms. Groves to be a part of the operation."

"Without her, there wouldn't have been much of one. Who is she?"

"You know that better than probably most. You were the one who helped Reese dig up her past."

"I know who she _was_. Who is she now? Who is she to _you_?"

Finch hesitated and evaded her gaze. Carter was surprised when he spoke.

"Her and I receive information from the same source. Her use of that information is rather more - reckless."

"And what is her connection to Mr. Westen and his team?"

Finch did not want to just brush Carter off; after all she had been a loyal asset to them despite being kept in the dark, and he had promised her some answers. At the same time, he did not want to put her life in danger any more than it already was by revealing the existence of the machine. He cleared his throat and his dilemma showed in his face, though Carter could not tell why he was so torn about answering her question.

"Mr. Fullerton was a threat not just to a few people. His activities could have had far reaching consequences - bad, very bad, ones - including threatening _our_ work." He looked right at her, with more openness than she was accustomed to, a small amount of fear hiding in the corners of his face. She appreciated the little bit of information he revealed, and sensed that probing further would be taking advantage of his no doubt exhausted state.

"I'm glad I could help."

"So are we."

Finch smiled and got up to stretch out his leg. He saw Reese at the back of the plane, doing the same thing, and limped over to him.

"What did you tell her?"

"As much as seemed warranted … and safe."

Reese nodded. "We can't keep involving her in activities such as this latest one."

Finch raised an eyebrow at his employee. "It's her choice."

Reese's expression was unreadable. Their exchange was interrupted by the chiming of Finch's cellphone. He sighed when he looked at the message - the words, and the number they decoded to, were familiar to him already.

"Mr. Westen's number just came up. Again."

"He's turning out to be more trouble than Leon."

.

.

The smell of grease and ham filled the air in the penitentiary eating hall, where Glenanne was sitting by herself, trying hard not to ponder whether she should have listened to Westen all along - whether they'd be in a better or worse place if she had. The look of the sickly slice of ham on her plate did the rest to spoil her appetite. A warden appeared in front of her, sparing her having to look at the heap of lunch for 15 more minutes. She was taken to a small meeting room and cuffed to the table. A moment later, Tom Card came in, waved the warden out of the room, and took the chair in front of her.

"Quite the mess you've gotten yourself and Michael into, if I dare say."

"Yeah, it's all my fault."

"Well, I can make it all go away."

"And what do you want in return?"

"Everything you got off the computers in Anson Fullerton's compound."

"We destroyed it all."

"Then I want the names of the people who helped you."

She didn't answer.

"I'll find out, one way or another. You can save yourself and me a lot of trouble."

"Go to hell."

"I'll meet you there."

Card got up and left. Glenanne was taken back to the cell block, but then past, down the corridor to a utility area.

"Where are you taking me?"

Two women awaited her, each looking intense, with their fists balled inside their pant pockets, holding on to something sharp.

"There she is! Wouldn't want to be late for a meeting with the judge," Root said, coming around the corner wearing a beige prison guard uniform, with another guard in tow, who spoke up, "this one's to be taken to see the judge right away."

.

Twenty minutes later, Glenanne was changing out of the orange prison uniform into jeans and a blouse in the back of a van. They had ditched the real guard, who - thanks to the efforts of both the Machine and Glenanne - was still alive, and unaware of what had happened.

"Okay … breaking out was not really part of my plan."

"Likewise. Turn about is fair play, I guess. Besides, at least you were about to be killed. All I was going to have to put up with was being bored out of my mind by some would-be psychologist."

"Well, uhm, thanks."

Root glanced at her through the rear view mirror.

"It's alright, the charges against you will be dropped soon."

"Will they?"

"I told you I'd help. I sent a video of the poor schlepp that Fullerton got to place the second set of charges, doing said deed, to the proper authorities. And your friend Sam intercepted the box of physical evidence. So you're in the clear. Can't say the same about Michael."

"What about him?"

Glenanne slid between the seats and came to rest on the passenger seat. She looked intently at Root.

"Well, Mr. Card was not all too happy with our infiltration of Anson's compound."

"I don't see what Card even has to do with anything."

"Me neither."

Glenanne raised an eyebrow.

"So, where are we going?"

"For myself, I haven't decided yet. You can hide out with Michael's family while the wheels of bureaucracy are turning."

.

.

Card sat down on the red vinyl bench of a diner to have some lunch himself while waiting for confirmation on the hit. Westen slid in across from him, firearm pointed under the table, and Card smiled.

"Michael! Long time no see."

"Cut the crap. You put a hit on me. I want to know why."

Card produced a fake, hollow sound approximating laughter.

"You know me better than that! Why would I want to kill my star pupil?"

"Put your hands on the table."

Card let go of the cellphone he was caressing in his pant pocked and complied.

"Listen, Michael, I was sorry to hear about your burn notice, but there was nothing I could do. Now that you're back in we can -"

Reese slid onto the bench next to Westen and dropped a manila envelope on the table in front of Card. Card looked at him.

"You. You're supposed to be dead."

"Open it."

Card took hold of the top corner of the file and inched it out of the envelope. He took his eyes off Reese to glance at the file once it was half exposed.

"This is over. I suggest you run."

Card looked up again, first at Reese then at Westen, and wiped his mouth with the paper handkerchief. He set the handkerchief on the table, smoothed it out, and walked out the door. Westen gave Reese an icy look, then pulled the file across the table.

"Don't know if I came here to stop you from hurting him, or him from hurting you, but based on that file, I'm guessing the latter," Reese said.

Westen holstered his weapon. "What is this?"

"File on Card. Finch stole it from Fullerton's servers. There are more." Reese pushed a flashdrive across the table.

"This is -"

"Leverage."

Indeed, the extracurricular activities outlined in this very unofficial personnel file did translate into leverage.

"Card must have known Fullerton had this."

"And thought you took it from him. Making you very expendable."

Reese looked into Westen's blank face, which revealed nothing of the breaking of another bond once deemed solid.

"There are lots of files on here." Reese tapped the memory stick with his finger.  
"You can make yourself welcome again, if you still want back in."

Through the diner window, Reese saw Porter limp away from the car they had arrived in, toward Glenanne, Sam, Nate and Mrs. Westen, who had just driven up. He did not know how they all found the place, but was not surprised that they did. The waitress looked like she may be about to do something about his lack of beverage, so he slid off the bench.

"In case you don't, Finch wanted me to give you this." He set a business card showing a single phone number on the table and walked toward the exit.

Westen said "thanks", just loud enough for Reese to hear when he was nearly at the door. Reese turned around for a short moment. Westen was cradling the memory stick in his hand.

Glenanne smiled and nodded at Reese across the parking lot. He nodded back and drove off.

.

.

Pearce checked her wristwatch again. She was not as weary as she should have been, waiting in the middle of swampy nowhere for a spy on the CIA's hitlist. When Westen appeared behind her, she nevertheless spun around and pointed her firearm at him. He raised his arms.

"Before you shoot me, you may want to check out what's on here." He wiggled his hand. She lowered her firearm.

"I don't want to shoot you. Don't make me regret the decision."

Westen smiled.

"I won't. I'm giving you this on good faith. It comes from Fullerton's computers, but I don't care where you claim you got it." He moved his arms back to his side and extended the one holding the flash drive toward her. "You'll see that my status as wanted-dead was pushed by people who have a file on here. In return for the information on this drive, I want out - to be left alone. Understand that I have a copy of the data."

"What's on it? What kind of files?"

"Leverage. The dirty kind. The kind hostile operatives would kill to have over our very own CIA operatives. If you don't use it, I will."

She nodded.

"I'll be in touch."

She nodded again and he walked off.

.

.

"Harold! How nice of you to come visit."

Root sat on the narrow bed in a white hospital gown with pale red flowers printed on it.

"You came back," Finch said. After he got the call, he immediately made the trip. He had to see for himself.

"She thought it would be best for me to be here for a while longer."

Finch glanced at the orderly in the hall, then closed the door to her room, but remained standing by the frame.

"It tells you all these things. Did it tell you to shoot Mr. Porter's leg and to kill Mr. Fullerton?"

"Not exactly, no. We're still working out some bugs. But whether you like it or not, Harold, I work for Her now."

"It. It's a machine. I built it for a purpose, and your admin access is illicit."

"And you gave Her the tools to surpass Her original design. She evolved, She adapted, She learned, and She's growing. You planted the seed, and now you're scared of what will grow from it. Don't be. She's your child, you tried to control Her when you should have raised Her, but She forgives you. I don't know why, but She does."

Finch was careful not to show too much of a reaction.

"You're wrong."

"You don't truly believe that."

He did not, and he did not want to hear any more about it.

"Enjoy your stay, Ms. Groves," he said in leaving.

~ the end ~


End file.
